


With Me

by BryroseA



Series: Stay With Me [2]
Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-02
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-02-19 14:06:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 115,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2391080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BryroseA/pseuds/BryroseA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sequel to <b>Stay</b>. After the crash, after the reunion, after "always." What happens next?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. September, 2013

**Author's Note:**

> "Nine years" canon, but going AU two years before the movie, following the events of Stay. This picks up right after that story ends and follows Veronica and Logan, vignette style, through the next few years.

Hey, will you stay awhile   
My smile will not mislead you   
Cause I've been alone   
My faith turned to stone   
Still, there's something in you I believe in 

**\--“Good For You, ” Third Eye Blind**

 

* * *

 

**September, 2013**

 

Veronica Mars hates hospitals.

Weird smells, institutional paint, bad food, and the memories... She shakes her head a little at the thought. Too many memories, none of them good.

 _For someone who hates hospitals, I sure have spent a disproportionate amount of time in them._ She breezes through the reception area on the third floor, nodding at familiar faces.

Weeks she’s spent in this particular hospital now; first in the ICU, then more recently on a recovery floor. Her entire life on hold—internship abandoned, school deferred—for one reason.

Logan.

She doesn’t begrudge it, really she doesn’t, but it has been a bit disorienting going in the blink of an eye from being Veronica Mars: single law student on her way up the ladder, to Veronica Mars: devoted naval girlfriend and expert on medically induced comas. Right now, she’s just focused on doing everything she can to get Logan better and their lives back to normal (or their version of normal, anyway) as quickly as possible.

She’s not the only one.

As soon as Logan’s left leg comes out of the cast, he is up and running—or at least trying to—clumping up and down the hospital hallway in a weird, halting rhythm. First the walker smacks the hospital linoleum ( _ka-chunk_ ) then his still casted right leg ( _thump_ ) then the rest of his body, dragging along after a pause. On his first day out of bed, Veronica shows up at the hospital just in time to walk slowly beside Logan as he heads down the hallway for his inaugural voyage. _Ka-chunk, thump, pause; ka-chunk, thump, pause; ka-chunk, thump, pause._

They make their painstaking way down the hall, Logan’s soft grunts of exertion the only sound between them. Veronica, walking slightly behind and to the right of Logan, studies the lines of his shoulders as he maneuvers himself, his muscles bunching and shifting under the baggy t-shirt he is wearing over his sweatpants. It is still so…surreal to see Logan every day. Hear him. Touch him. They had found their way back to each other after nearly seven years of separation.  After the talk where they figured out their relationship— _well, sort of—_ Logan has been almost unfailingly cheerful when not asleep. Veronica knows he is in a great deal of pain, but he has been pleasant and joking with the nurses and full of adoring looks and quips for her. Today, though, he has been uncharacteristically quiet and grim, greeting her with a brief nod instead of the wide grin she’s become accustomed to, and heading out into the hall without any conversation.

_Ka-chunk, thump, pause._

As they walk, Veronica notes, worriedly, the straining of Logan’s left arm as it bears the majority of his body weight on the walker frame. _Ka-chunk, thump, pause._ The right side of Logan’s body had been much more seriously damaged when he’d been forced to eject from his fighter jet over the California desert. A partially opened parachute had saved his life, but left him with multiple serious injuries that were still far from fully healed. His right arm is finally out of the cast, but still weak and, she knows, painful from several newly healed fractures and some serious scrapes and bruises.

_Ka-chunk, thump, pause._

Once they’ve gone about halfway down the hall, Logan’s leg and arms trembling, Veronica can’t stand it any longer. She asks as evenly as she can manage, “ready to turn around?”

 _Ka-chunk, thump, pause._ Logan is breathing heavily, but in a controlled manner. “I’m good. Let’s go further.” She raises her eyebrows, but they continue their progress down the hallway.

 _Ka-chunk, thump, pause. Ka-chunk, thump, pause._ Within a few steps, Logan’s face begins to redden, his mouth taut with pain. _Ka-chunk, thump, pause._

“Logan, I think we should head back to your room.”

He exhales sharply, “I said, I’m good.” _Ka-chunk, thump, pause._

Frustrations seeps into her voice. “Oh yeah, clearly. You’re ready to sprint right out of here. Watch out Usain Bolt.”

He turns to glare at her. “Look, you go back. I’m fine.” _Ka-chunk, thump, pause._ _Ka-chunk, thump, pause. Pause. Pause._ He wavers a little on his feet and Veronica looks at him and then back toward his hospital room meaningfully. _Ka-chunk, thump—_

“Stop, Logan.” Her voice is a whip crack; several other patients turn their way at the sound, only to turn back at the sight of the couple glaring at each other, clearly spoiling for a fight. “If you go any further, you’re going to fall over. Let me get someone with a wheelchair to take you back.” She steps in front of him to halt any forward progress.

“Veronica, I can do this.”

“Maybe you _can_ , but you shouldn’t. You’re pushing yourself too hard! You just woke up from a coma!” ( _You fell out of a plane)_ “You’re still healing.”

Logan grits his teeth, eyes flashing, “I. Can. Do. This. Now, are you going to get out of my way?”

“Oh sure, sure.” She waves her hand down the hallway in angry invitation. Logan sets his jaw and moves forward, achingly slowly. _Ka-chunk, thump, pause. Ka-chunk, thump, pause._

Veronica crosses her arms and stands as if rooted to the linoleum, blinking her eyes against angry tears, “And he’s off aaaaand stumbling!”

_Ka-chunk, thump, pause. Ka-chunk, thump, pause._

About ten feet down the hall, Logan stops and leans heavily on the walker, breathing in through his nose in staccato gulps.

_He should be in bed._

Veronica’s anger deflates suddenly and she walks slowly up to him, her voice low, ready to be gracious in victory. She lays a hand lightly on the small of his back. “Ready to go back?”

Logan jerks a nod at her.

He manages to make it about half-way back down the hall before the nurses swoop in and rescue him. One hundred and eighty pounds of petulant male in a wheelchair.

Back in the room, Logan settles heavily into the bed, sweat beading his skin, face tight with pain. Veronica maintains her silence, the air heavy with her unsaid words, but she grabs the large plastic cup of ice water from the bedside table and hands it to him.

“Thank you,” he says curtly.

Veronica exhales through her nose. “You look tired. Do you want me to put the head of your bed down?”

“No.”

“I can turn the TV on for you, if you want.”

“No.”

“More water?”

“No, Veronica! Dammit!” The words echo into the shocked silence that abruptly fills the room. Logan closes his eyes almost immediately in remorse, “I’m sorry. Shit, Veronica. I’m sorry.”

Veronica makes an abortive move toward the door, her first instinct to flee before she says something she knows she'll regret. Once glance at Logan’s face, however, and she throws herself back into the visitor chair in frustration instead. As she does so, Veronica notes its position—dragged to the other side of the bed from where she’d left it the night before—and a few other things click into place. _Breathe through it, Veronica_. “Logan, who was here this morning?”

Logan shoots her an unhappy look, but answers. “Commander Branch. He’s a commanding officer.”

“But he’s not your commander, right?” Logan’s XO and CO had deployed several weeks previously with the rest of his squad.

“No, he’s standing in.” Logan pauses for a long time before quietly continuing, “he wanted to talk about what other Navy positions I might be interested in after I heal if I can’t be a pilot any more.”

Veronica is taken aback. “But, you said…” Logan had been adamant immediately after his injuries about returning to flying.

“I know,” Logan says grimly, “but I didn’t really understand the extent of it. I didn’t think…” He sighs, “Veronica, Naval Aviators have to be in peak physical condition. They test and monitor us constantly; our stamina, our breathing, our heart rate, our body fat percentage for Christ sake. My kinds of injuries…they could easily keep me from flying ever again if I let them. I can’t let them. Branch just assumed…”

“Logan—“

At that moment, Dr. McTavish, the head of Logan’s neurosurgery team, comes into the room, interrupting the tension. She nods briskly at both of them, “Lt. Echolls, Mrs. Echolls.” Logan’s jaw drops and his head snaps to Veronica.

Veronica’s eyes widen; the doctor had called her that several times while Logan was unconscious, but she’d always corrected her— _except that one time_. She rushes in, stammering and beet red, “Oh no, I’m not… that is, we’re not…I’m not Mrs. Echolls.”

The doctor looks briefly between them both before returning her gaze to the screen of her electronic reader. “Oh?” She says in an unconcerned tone, “then I’m afraid you’ll have to leave, miss. This is confidential.”

“No!” Logan practically shouts, locking his hand around Veronica’s wrist. He flushes, and then moderates his tone. “No. My wife here is just kidding. She’s upset with me and joking. Right, lovebug?” He favors Veronica with a cheesy, insincere grin, but she can see the mute plea in his eyes.

Veronica settles back into her chair, “Of course, sugar,” she says, giving him a small smile. “I’m sorry doctor, please go on.” She works her hand up to where Logan’s still grips around her wrist and laces their fingers together.

Dr McTavish meets Logan’s eyes for the first time, her gaze piercing and assessing. “Neurologically, you’re very lucky, Lt. Echolls.” Veronica squeezes Logan’s hand. “When you were brought in, I had some serious concerns about bleeding in your brain and overall cranial pressure. Additionally, a barbiturate coma can have some serious neurological side-effects in and of itself.”

She turns her attention abruptly to Veronica, rapid-firing questions at her, “Any more signs of memory loss?”

“No.”

“Unexplained verbal outbursts?”

“No.”

“Confusion? Difficulty recalling words?”

“No.”

“Well, our scans are all showing completely normal brain function.” She narrows her eyes at Logan. “There is still a long road ahead, the brain is tricky and we’ll want to monitor you closely for quite a while, but I am cautiously optimistic that you will come out of this with little to no neurological impairment.”

Veronica still has the reflexive instincts that come from being the girlfriend of nineteen year old bad boy Logan, because she is more than half expecting some sort of 'But Doc, will I ever play the piano again?' joke. Apparently, the twenty-six year old navy version of Logan has found some things that aren’t a joking matter, because he merely squeezes Veronica’s hand.

The good word delivered, the doctor starts to whisk herself out of the hospital room, when Veronica’s voice stops her. “Doctor!” Doctor McTavish pauses in the doorway, Logan’s fingers in Veronica’s have tightened to a death grip. “My—Lt. Echolls is a navy pilot. Is there—will he—is there anything you know about that?” Veronica finishes lamely, not really sure what she wants to ask. Not even sure she knows what she wants the answer to be.

The doctor’s face softens a bit. “Yes, well. Pilots are tricky—eye sight, reflexes—all things that are difficult to predict at this point.” Logan nods faintly. “We’ll do our best to get you flying again, Lieutenant.” With that, she zips out of the room, white lab coat fluttering in her wake.

In the silence that fills the room, Logan releases Veronica’s fingers carefully. Veronica turns her head toward him. “Logan…”

“Can we not?” He asks, softly. “Not right now?”

“Okay.” Veronica runs her hands through her hair. “I’m just going to go…get some coffee. Want some?”

Logan nods at her curtly and she leaves the room.

______

 

_She’s gone again._

_Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT! Screwing it up already, Echolls._

Logan smacks the rail of his hospital bed in frustration and then winces at the sharp needles of pain that shoot out from his raw palm.

_Fuck._

_You fucking told her to go, you asshole._

Logan struggles to turn himself in the bed, intending to swing his legs over the side, get up, and go after Veronica. He successfully levers his torso up, ignoring the aching burn in his mid-section, and gets his good leg over to the side of the bed. The casted leg, dragging behind, tangles in the bed sheets, torquing his pelvis to an angle that shoots right past uncomfortable and into unbearable.

He falls back on the bed, face bright red with frustration, tears of exhaustion welling in his eyes.

_Fucking weak motherfucker. Too weak to even go after your own girlfriend._

_Too weak to fly_.

Every instinct in his body is screaming at him to throw a fit. Punch something. Flip the bed. Yell. Scream. Get drunk as fuck.

Logan closes his eyes forcefully— _fuck, even that hurts—_ and makes himself focus on his heart rate, his breathing. His own personal calming ritual. None of the therapists or counseling he’s sporadically tried have ever stuck, but he never would have made it in the Navy without some way of calming himself down. Pushing back against those Aaron-bred instincts of dark, reflexive anger.  This one is all him. Mind on his dwindling pulse rate, picturing the thrum of blood through every inch of his body, Logan compels himself to drill down into his emotions. Break them down, lay them out clinically and label them. _I’m not really angry, I’m frustrated. Frustrated because I can’t. Do. Anything._ He takes a deep breath in through his nose. Out through his mouth. _I’m not really frustrated, I’m…scared._

Logan opens his eyes, startled by the realization. He used to think he’d never be scared of anything again if he could just get Veronica to come back to him. Turns out he was wrong.

The idea of never flying again…it squirms in his belly, a giant scary mass he can only look at out of the corner of his eye. He feels stupid for not considering the possibility before Branch came this morning. Of course he might not fly again. Just the ejection alone could have been serious enough to ground him, and then...he looks down at his body, lying askew in the twisted up sheets. _These could be career-ending injuries._ His fingers reach up to his throat, tracing the reddened, barely healing wound of his tracheotomy scar. Better pilots than he, with less severe injuries than his, have been grounded. 

_I won’t let it happen._

He had joined the Navy for so many reasons. For a way to grow up and out of his personal pit; a way to make things better; a way to be the kind of man she would come back to. And— _miracle of miracles—_ it had mostly worked. He’d grown up, found something he is _good_ at. She came back.

The Navy wasn’t some sort of magical experience that automatically molded him into a better man. It was hard work, hours and hours of training, hard-won, teeth-gritting self-control.

Self-respect.

A purpose in his life.

Flying. 

 _What happens if it all goes away? If you have to start all over again?_ And then, quietly creeping out of the depths of his mind, comes the thought. _Would she stay?_

She came back for focused, pulled together Logan. Navy Pilot Logan. Logan with a purpose and goals and a career she can be proud of. Veronica Mars is going places. She doesn’t attach herself to aimless wash-outs; he remembers that very well.

No. He’ll get it all back. His body, his career. _Veronica._ He’ll hold on to all of it, somehow. _I have to._

_I won’t let her leave._

______

 

Rather than getting coffee, Veronica randomly pushes buttons in the elevator and finds herself getting off on a floor she’s never been to before. She makes determined laps, striding along as though she knows exactly where she is going, head down and shoes squeaking against the linoleum.

Her mind is a-whirl with Logan; the look in Logan's eyes while the doctor spoke, Logan flying, Logan’s face clenched in pain, Logan lying in a hospital bed broken almost beyond recognition—her first sight of him in almost seven years.

Logan flying.

A low growling sound escapes Veronica momentarily. Her mind skitters around, desperately searching for something else to think about. _I wish I had a case right now._  The thought flits through her consciousness, taking her by surprise. She hasn’t thought about detecting ( _much)_ recently. Being back in Neptune, though, worrying about Logan…Veronica snorts a little. _Old reflexes die hard_.

The weird little self-contained universe of hospital living has begun to get to her in the past few days and abruptly it all just feels too overwhelming. There is nothing she can really _do_ except be there for Logan. And she has nowhere else to put all of her energy; her focus. The corner of Veronica’s mouth lifts wryly at the thought.

_Neither of us does._

It’s an oddly tentative thing this, the first version of their relationship where they haven’t really been able to jump quickly into anything physical. There have been kisses, of course, and a few pleasant heavy groping sessions initiated by Logan, but the state of his health and the nurses popping in and out of rooms with little warning hadn’t really made for a romantic environment.

At the same time, they haven’t really hashed much out on a personal level. Logan tires so quickly, and there has been so much else to talk about—catch up on—Veronica has heard all about OCS but neither have brought up exactly what will happen when Veronica goes back to New York.

It has been so wonderful, the blazing joy of his recovery and their reunion, was it any wonder she’d wanted to stretch out that emotional high a bit longer?

With a weary sigh, Veronica turns back in the direction of the elevators. She spends the rest of the trip back to Logan’s room mentally composing her opening arguments,

_I don’t think you should be pushing yourself this hard._

_Not being able to fly again wouldn’t be the end of the world, would it? You’d be safer._

_I’m going to be gone in a few months; who will make you put the brakes on then?_

She strides down the hall, growing steadily angrier with Logan-in-her-head’s refusal to listen to reason. Finally at her destination, Veronica steels herself and turns the corner into Logan’s room. _And another thing!_

He’s asleep.

_Well, damn._

She stands there for a moment, stymied, looking at the still figure in the bed, sheets twisted around his body. Her gaze falls on the pink, newly grown skin on Logan’s forearms; the red, scabbing gashes on his temple; the sheer exhaustion apparent in every line of his sleeping face.

Veronica sighs internally and turns the lights in the room off— _I’ll let the nurses yell at me later—_ and crosses to the bed. She takes hold of the sheet and gently untangles it, smoothing her hands against the slightly scratchy white linen where it is tucked around Logan’s hip. Some of the tension of the day drains out of her.

She quietly flips the newly straightened sheet back—Logan looks like he wouldn’t wake up if a marching band trumpeted through the room—and crawls into the bed.

Veronica curls up into Logan’s side, feeling him warm against her. _Alive and mine, if nothing else._ The narrow hospital bed with its rails and creaky plastic-covered mattress should be uncomfortable, but it’s not.

It’s not at all. 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Infinite thanks, as always, to **marshmallowtasha** for her stellar beta skills.


	2. November, 2013 - January, 2014

**November, 2013 - January, 2014**

 

Logan spends most of September and October in the hospital, moving to a rehab facility the week before Halloween.

While he is in the hospital and at rehab, Veronica stays in his San Diego condo; a compromise only agreed to after several rather tense discussions.

_(“Veronica, seriously. What is the problem? Why don’t you want to stay at my place?”_

_“It’s not that I don’t_ want _to, I just don’t want to_ need _to. I don’t like…taking things.”_

_“From me?”_

_“From anyone.”)_

Logan is recovering rapidly, but he is far from fully healed. His days are taken up with long bouts of physical therapy; hours of pushing his body, first with a walker, then with a crutch, and then finally, shakily, in early November, on his own.

He has been tight lipped with Veronica about his Navy prospects. As Logan heals, he takes over emailing updates to the members of his squad who are on deployment and Veronica loses her easy “in” to talk about military things—her desire, too, she admits privately to herself on occasion. _It’s easier not to think about it._ Commander Branch has been to visit a few more times and Logan is still determined to return to flying. The mixture of pride and fear the topic brings up in her is confusing and all-consuming enough that she’s happy to let it get pushed aside in the day-to-day reality of the work of helping Logan heal.

One afternoon, though, Veronica stands by the side of the rehab center’s physical therapy room and watches while Logan pushes away from the parallel bars he’s been using for support and takes his first unassisted steps. At that moment, she is forced to admit privately to herself; _this is happening. If there’s a way for him to fly again he’s going to find it._

_Sack up, Mars._

November is an intense month, full of long frustrating days and weeks, peppered by several monumental breakthroughs. Logan walks and stumbles and falls. He grits his teeth. He sweats, he swears, but he does not ever, _ever_ complain. It’s almost worrisome. Logan has always been headlong and fully committed about his passions, but the degree of investment and focus he puts into his healing is a completely new revelation to Veronica. The whole idea of Logan in the Navy—how he could possibly have made it through the long, grueling training—is starting to really be real to her. He’s not just the broody-sweet-snarky teen Logan anymore. He’s an adult. In the Navy. _He really is._

By the time December rolls around, the rehab routine has become as familiar to Veronica as the hospital’s once was. She knows the staff and the therapists, knows Logan’s schedule, knows all of the good take-out places in the general vicinity, knows more about muscular avulsion and coccydynia than she would ever have thought possible. Her days vary little; up in the morning for a run along the beach— _I’ll miss this in New York_ —clean up, run errands, and head to the center to sit in on part of Logan’s morning physical therapy session. Then lunch, mostly with Logan, sometimes with Wallace or her dad— _I’ll miss this, too_. In the afternoon, some combination of PT, doctors’ visits, hanging out with Logan and dinner, then back home. Evenings are Netflix and paperwork—printing, copying, filling out, and filing the enormous amount of red tape surrounding Logan’s treatment and rehab. It’s not a job he asked her to take on, but she needs something concrete to do. _I won’t miss this_. Now that Logan is awake and alert most of the day, her favorite times are ones spent with him in his room, just playfully sniping at each other, talking and getting reacquainted. It feels almost like being home. The rehab facility is a little more private than the hospital. Logan’s room is at the end of a long hallway, slightly isolated from the other patients’ rooms, and the staff seems less inclined than those at the hospital to pop in at inconvenient moments.

Still, it’s pretty much a complete surprise to Veronica when, after a cursory knock, she swings briskly through the door of Logan’s room one day in early December to find him standing buck naked in front of the full-length mirror attached to the back of the bathroom door.

Her cheery “Hi!” dying on her lips, Veronica stands in stunned silence just inside the doorway, blinking, her mouth gaping open. It’s not that she hasn’t seen Logan’s body recently; the intimacies of caring for him in the hospital have made her pretty familiar with his new physique, it’s just that she’s never seen it full on. All at once. Like this. Naked. _Oh…ummm…wow._

She leans back a few inches and fumbles at the door handle, “I’ll just lock this, shall I?”

Logan still stands in front of the mirror, his eyes meeting hers in the reflection. He doesn’t bother to cover himself; Logan has never really been overly concerned about modesty. She starts to saunter toward him lustfully, when she finally registers his face—set and grim—and his eyes—sad. _Shit. This isn’t sexytimes, I take it._

Slowly Veronica completes her walk across the room, laying a hand on the small of Logan’s back as she reaches him, trying to gauge the reason for his mood.

Logan gives her a little smile in the mirror. “Not very pretty, is it?”

Her eyes follow his gesturing hand downward to the purply red, twisting scar that runs down his right thigh. Veronica is startled. She’s seen the wound so many times it has lost much of its horror for her, but, “No,” she replies, “it’s not.”

“I didn’t need any more,” he says softly, reaching a finger down to trace along the length of the scar.

_Shit._

“Logan, you’re fine. You’re going to be fine. You’ve come such a long way and…” Veronica shakes her head helplessly and steps forward to wrap her arms around his waist.

“Yeah,” he says, unreassured.

Veronica takes a few deep breaths in, her nose pressed against his back. He’s losing the hospital smell; slowly but surely the minty-sour antiseptic tang is fading, leaving just Logan. His bare skin under her hands is hot. She can’t see her way forward. _How to handle this? Reassurances?_ _Tenderness? Sex?—no dammit, shut up horny Veronica. How about the old Mars standby?_ She pops her head around Logan’s arm so that their gazes meet in the mirror again. “Is this the part where I kneel before the rugged warrior and lovingly kiss his scars to reassure him that he is beautiful to me?”

Logan’s eyes flair with something— _heat? hope?_ —and he lets out a small laugh. “Been sneaking the paperback romances out of the nurse’s lounge again?”

“What else is there for me to do while you’re at PT?”

“Well then, only if you shake out your golden tresses first. And…ooh, allow a few scattered tears to fall on my wounds.”

Veronica lofts an eyebrow. “Golden tresses? Logan.”

“Hey! What can I say? There’s not much to do around here after hours but read.”

“I think a few tears could be mustered up.” Veronica smiles up at him teasingly.

Logan scoffs, “Veronica Mars doesn’t cry!”

He is clearly bantering, but a ring of something in his tone makes Veronica pull back and come around him so that they are standing face to face. “I cry,” she says, her tone suddenly firm and serious.

“I know, Veronica. I didn’t mean to—“

She takes a deep breath. “I mean, I cried. Over you. A lot. And not just after the accident.”

Logan cocks his head to the side, searching her face. “Me too,” he says softly. “Let’s…try not to do that any more.”

“Deal.” Veronica removes the elastic holding her hair into a messy bun and shakes her hair loose in a deliberately dramatic fashion. “Now then, where were we?”

She falls to her knees in front of him, wrapping her hands around his calves, caressing the re-emerging muscles. Logan’s body is now responding aggressively to her presence, she smiles up at him but his eyes are worried. He reaches down for her shoulders, trying to pull her up.

“Veronica, you don’t have to do this.”

Veronica shakes his grip off lightly, her hands climbing the back of his legs to rest on his ass. Logan gives an involuntary jerk forward and groans her name. “Veronica!”

She scoots in closer, looking up at him, “Remember?” she asks, “Me, lovingly,” Logan lets out a gasp as her lips press lightly against the top of his scar, “Kissing.” Another kiss, a little further down, “Your wounds,” A final kiss, near where the scar dwindles out about two inches above his knee.

His voice almost impossibly gravelly and low, Logan rasps, “To reassure me?”

“Yeah.” The hospital linoleum is pressing into her knees and the fluorescent lights buzz overhead. Hardly a romantic atmosphere. _I don’t care; we’ve waited long enough_.

Veronica makes to start kissing back up the scar, her end goal a little further north this time, when Logan reaches down and pulls her up tightly against him. His long naked body feels incredibly erotic pressed against her. He buries his face in her neck, breathing harshly. “Logan?” Veronica hates the hesitancy in her voice. “Don’t you want…?”

“God, yes! It’s just that I really wanted our first time—I mean, you know, _this_ time—to be about you.”

“Have you been _planning_ this?”

“God, yes!” He repeats fervently. “You’ve been so…I want it to be perfect for you.”

“Logan, it will be.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. But I want it to be about _us_ not about me. Are you sure you’re ready for this? Your leg…”

“ _Please_ don’t mention my leg. It’s fine. I want you so much, Veronica.” His fingers are clenched into the material of her shirt.

“Then take me, flyboy. Or I’ll take you.”

Logan’s hands descend— _finally! Yes, God.—_ to the button of her fly. He strips her pants and underwear off clumsily, Veronica eagerly kicking them off her ankles. He is all out of order—she is still fully clothed from the waist up—seemingly unable to break the devouring connection of their mouths. _No smooth and polished lover here; just need._ Veronica reaches down to pull her shirt off, suddenly on fire with months—years!—of suppressed longing. All of her teasing patience is out the window.

She pulls him backwards toward the bed, nails scratching and teeth nipping, as he busies himself with her bra clasp. God, he tastes amazing. _Need him so much._ They are tumbling onto the covers in a frantic confusion of limbs as he finally works the bra free and her breasts are exposed— _she_ is exposed—to his hungry gaze. There is only a second for Veronica to wonder what he thinks of the changes seven years have wrought on her body— _twenty-seven is less perky than nineteen_ —before he is on her.

“Fuck, Veronica. I’m so sorry—” He is fumbling at her legs, spreading her, testing her, “I wanted this to be slow, but I can’t. I—”

Veronica thrusts up into his searching fingers, practically incoherent with want. “Slow later. So much later for slow. _Now_ Logan. Fuck! Now, please!”

And then he is inside her and words stop.

 

___________

 

After they finally fully reunite—twice—they both fall asleep, but Logan wakes up only ten minutes later. He’s been trying recently to train his body to do without the mid-day naps that had been so necessary to his healing in the wake of the accident. A few weeks ago, he made the decision that that period was over and, ever since, he’s been working consciously on cutting back his daytime sleep and amping up the hours he gets at night.

_No malingering._

Just now, though, he’s glad for a more personal reason to be awake. Logan looks down at the naked woman in his arms and smiles. _She’s out like a light._ He brushes back a small wisp of hair that is tickling her cheek and Veronica grumbles a little at the caress, burrowing more determinedly into the covers without truly waking.

She is flushed and a little sweaty, skin mottled and hair a wild tangle. There is a hickey blossoming high on the slope of one breast and he can’t even remember… _oh yeah._ A swell of pure happiness and love swamps him. Veronica was a good-looking girl and she has grown into an undeniably beautiful woman. Logan knows that other people recognize that fact—Brad, his strength trainer, has been openly appreciative—but he has a hard time believing that she is as gorgeous in anyone else’s eyes as she is to him right now. It just can’t be possible. _No one else can possibly feel this…much for her_.

He lies there, breathing her in, for several long, contented minutes. She’d been lost to him for so long. _Seven years._ Having her back feels both amazingly right and so surreal he has to close his eyes against the thought sometimes. And the fact that she’s leaving again so soon… _just two more months; a little less, actually._ It’s like a kick in the face. _I’m going to keep her this time. I have to._ He’d like nothing better than to stay in bed with her forever, except…yeah, he does have to pee pretty badly.

Quietly and carefully, Logan extricates himself from the bed. Veronica flops over a bit, but doesn’t wake up. He makes a beeline for the bathroom, snagging his neatly folded boxer-briefs from the chair where he had placed them before his impromptu self-evaluation.

After taking care of business, he walks back out into the room. Halfway back to the bed, his bad leg buckles slightly under him, causing Logan to stop momentarily and let out a stream of mostly silent curses.

He reaches down to massage the offending limb. His right thigh _is_ aching and sore, a fact he’d barely registered until just now. The flesh around the scar is knotty and puckered and he still has some difficulty straightening that leg all the way – one of the main focuses of his continued PT.

Carefully, Logan breathes in and lowers himself into the half-squat position that is a staple of his physical therapy. _Fuck! Damn it. Yeah, that hurts._ He exhales in a steady stream, ignoring the pain as he’s been doing ever since he woke up to the reality of what his injuries could mean for his career. _Maybe I should do a set of squats. Loosen it up._

He can almost hear Veronica’s voice in his head. _“Don’t push too hard_.”

She hasn’t actually said that, or anything like it, in weeks, though. Not since around the time he started walking on his own. Logan can tell she has wanted to—she stands by the side of the room during his PT, or helps position his body for exercises and he can see her bite her lip—see the worry in her eyes—but she doesn’t say anything. He’s been simultaneously relieved and worried by her restraint. It is, admittedly, easier, but… _we need to talk._

Logan straightens up and heads back toward the bed, limping a little. _Maybe we were a tad too…acrobatic_ , he thinks grinning down on Veronica’s sleeping figure, _but damn do I not regret it even the tiniest bit_.

Being inside her again after seven years— _God_ —it was worth all of this pain and so much more.

The beds at the rehab facility are a little better than those at the hospital, a more normal width and slightly less plastic and clinical looking, but still so much less than she deserves. Seeing her in the bed, so small against even this modest backdrop, makes Logan feel vaguely uneasy. Veronica is such a badass—that hasn’t changed even if she channels it into law now, instead of detecting—and she has been such a pillar of strength to him during this whole shitty mess that it is always vaguely a surprise to be reminded of exactly how tiny she really is. _And her in a hospital bed_ …goosebumps crawl up his arms. The thought of Veronica actually hurt and in the hospital is so all-consumingly terrifying. _I don’t know if I could do for her what she’s doing for me. I don’t know if I could hold it together._

Veronica inhales suddenly and, eyes still closed, her arm reaches out to pat the empty part of the bed. Finding only empty sheet, her brow furrows and Logan can tell she’s about to wake up. Quickly, he climbs back under the covers and gathers her in against him, hoping to allow her to sleep for a little longer, but it is too late.

Veronica opens her eyes and blinks sleepily up at him. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Mmm…that was…” She stretches, pointing each of her feet delicately in turn and rotating her ankles. “Wonderful!”

Logan laughs.

“Shut up, I rocked your world.”

“No doubt about it, my dear.”

Veronica flops onto his chest and then pulls back a bit. “How are you feeling? You didn’t hurt anything, did you?”

“Nope. Still in my original, pristine condition—or, as close to it as I was before anyway.”

Veronica’s hand reaches down to lightly rub his thigh. He can’t actually feel her fingers tracing the scar, since the skin around the wound is numb, but he can feel his tense muscles relaxing under the pressure.

As she continues the massage, Veronica rubs her naked body against him in small undulations, and Logan is starting to think round three might be a little more imminent than he’d assumed, when she startles and pulls her hand away. “Shit! Where’s my shirt? Someone could come in. How long until you’re supposed to be somewhere?”

“Don’t worry. I still have an hour before this afternoon’s PT.”

Veronica relaxes, sinking back onto the bed. “Gregor the dictator today?”

Logan grimaces, “It’s Thursday, so I assume so.”

“How fun for you.” She chuckles a little. 

“I don’t mind really.”

She rolls her eyes, “Of course you don’t, you…” She trails off, biting her lip. They descend into silence, the atmosphere suddenly uneasy.

_She’s holding back again._

Logan sets his jaw. “Veronica, I want us to…talk about things this time.”

Veronica nods, her thoughts clearly traveling along the same lines as his. “Me too,” she agrees.

“So, um, do we need to talk?”

Veronica nods again. They stare at each other for long seconds, eyes searching. Veronica bites her lip and looks away. “I’m just—” she starts at the same time that Logan blurts out, “When you—”

They both stop, stuttering, and wave simultaneous hands at each other to continue.

“Ugh!” Veronica groans and buries her head under the pillow. “Why is it _so hard_ to be an adult?” comes her muffled, plaintive query.

Logan gently pats the pillow over her head and chuckles helplessly. “I don’t know.”

Logan picks up Veronica’s hand and laces their fingers together. “Me first, huh?” She nods vigorously from beneath her fluffy cocoon.

“Okay, well I’m really proud of you for going to law school, you know, especially Columbia.”

Veronica whips her head out of the pillow’s embrace, “I know that!” She says, smoothing back the now feral cloud of her hair with her free hand, “I know you are.”

“Good.” Logan takes a deep breath and squeezes her hand. “I’m just…I’m really going to miss you. We haven’t really talked at all about what it’s going to be like and I’m a little worried that I won’t…that we won’t…” He trails off, frustrated for words.

She goes for the quip first—“What, should we work up a visitation schedule?”—and he gives a weak smile in response. Logan can see his disappointment register on her face and she breathes in deep and takes another run at it.

“Logan,” Veronica scoots in closer toward him. “I know I’m going away—going to New York—and I’m not too happy about it either right now. But, you know that I’m not… _leaving_ you, right?”

Logan nods a small nod, turmoil in his eyes.

“I’m here…I mean I’m in this— _us_ —with you and that is not going to change, okay?”

“Okay,” he responds, a little hoarsely, and leans forward to rest his forehead against hers. “Okay.”

After a moment he clears his throat and leans back. “Your turn.” He offers with a slightly wobbly smile.

She smiles brilliantly back at him. “Wait a minute now. That was some _excellent_ communicating, don’t you agree?”

Logan can’t help but chuckle. “First class.”

“Well, don’t you think that deserves some kind of reward?”

“Ice cream?”

Veronica shoots a finger gun at him. “Boyfriend points for you. But I was thinking of something a little…closer at hand. And warm.” Her smile shifts. “You said you had an hour?”

Somehow, the conversation never really does come back around to Veronica’s concerns.

 

___________

 

A week later, in mid-December, Logan returns home and suddenly—too suddenly—the condo which, although large and imposing, Veronica had unconsciously started thinking of as her space, becomes their space.

She’s never lived with a boyfriend before, much less with a still-recovering Logan. Somehow he seems to take up all the room in the spacious condo and it is confusing and unsettling and basically wonderful.

Her father, who has been grim-lipped but mostly silent about the whole law-school-deferral thing, offered several times to let Veronica stay with him in the guest bedroom of his newly purchased Craftsman bungalow. Neptune, though, is too far away from Logan’s rehab facility in San Diego.

And she doesn’t want to.

The countdown is on until Veronica has to fly back to New York to resume her second year at Columbia Law and the impending separation makes her more jealous of her time with Logan.

 _One month_ _left_ , she thinks as they drive to the hardware store to pick out a miniature Christmas tree for the condo.

 _Three weeks_ , as they make the bed together one morning, Logan’s corners amusingly ship-shape with Navy-bred creases that she teases him about for at least forty-eight hours.

 _A little over two weeks_ , as she tickles the back of Logan’s neck while they sit on the couch watching a movie. He turns to glare at her reproachfully, but his eyes are amazingly warm.

The domesticity is comforting, lulling. Soon to end.

Finally, _not long now_ , as they load a bag of colorfully wrapped presents to take over to her father’s house on Christmas Eve. _Just Christmas, then two weeks, then long distance._

 

_____________

 

The doorbell rings on Christmas Eve and Keith Mars swings open his front door to find Veronica, Santa hat firmly in place, and…no Logan. _Merry Christmas, Keith!_

He gives his daughter a quick hug and asks, “And where is your beau?”

“Parking the car.”

“They’re letting him drive?”

“It’s good for his reflexes, they say.” Veronica spears him with a very familiar look—a look that immediately brings back visions of his daughter at age twelve, age sixteen, age nineteen, dragging this same boy home and expecting him to put on a happy face. “Be nice, Dad.”

Keith smiles reassuringly at her—“When am I anything but?”—as Logan comes up the front walkway. Logan is still walking a bit tentatively and with little of the bounding enthusiasm one might expect from a young man in the prime of his life, but he is remarkably improved from the last time Keith saw him, almost a month ago.

Logan holds out his hand as he approaches the door. “Sir,” he says with a serious smile. Keith takes the offered hand in a firm shake, barely resisting the urge to put a little extra squeeze into the maneuver and see exactly how far the strength training has progressed.

It’s not that Keith _hates_ Logan. He was distressed enough when he heard about the accident to drive down to San Diego and check on Logan personally and he is grudgingly impressed with how well the young man has pulled his life together. _And with those parents, too._

It’s just…if he has those visions of Veronica at all ages inexplicably championing this young man; he has equal and contrasting visions of exactly how it has always ended. Twelve year old Logan dragging Veronica into inappropriate and dangerous circumstances for years, before brutally turning on her in one of her darkest hours. Seventeen year old Logan shouting—shouting!—at his little girl and breaking things. Nineteen year old Logan doing something Keith has never really found out the depths of, but that was bad enough to leave Veronica emotionally fragile for months.

If there’s one thing Keith learned from his misbegotten farce of a marriage, it was not to expect people to change their established patterns of behavior. Not to look at someone and think, _I can love you enough to fix that_.

It never works.

There is nothing more painful for a parent than to watch your child repeat your own mistakes, but here is his baby—the best part of him and the brightest thing in his world—once more turning her life upside down for this…kid.

_He may be older and he may have an impressive career, but he’s going to hurt her again. I know it._

The kids are in the living room now, laying out presents under the tree. Keith watches them jostle each other and laugh, forcibly turning his thoughts in happier directions. He allows himself to think about how Veronica hadn’t been able to make it home last Christmas. About how wonderful it has been to see her so often this summer and fall; even if he’s not too pleased about the reason.

The first part of the evening goes remarkably smoothly with Veronica as a buffer. They eat dinner – small talk and quips flying freely – and then migrate back to the living room to open presents. Logan and Veronica each brought a few small packages. Keith finds himself the recipient of some new Padres gear from Logan and a state of the art cell phone tracker from Veronica. _Where did she get the money for this?_ He eyes Logan suspiciously, but Logan’s attention is completely focused on Veronica, watching her as she opens her gifts with a childish glee.

Veronica rips eagerly into the paper on one of the small gifts the couple had brought with them. Out tumbles a soft, thin scarf in vibrant shades of watermelon pink and green.

“Logan, this is so pretty!” With a dramatic flourish, she wraps it around her neck, where it makes an amusing contrast to her reindeer sweater and Santa hat.

_She doesn’t ever wear colors like that any more._

“I got it in Manzanillo, Mexico. We stopped in port when the ship was out for a short work-up tour toward the beginning of the year.”

Veronica’s eyebrows arch aggressively. “Oh really, and who was the lucky recipient supposed to be?”

Logan looks down at his lap briefly, his fingers idly pleating a stray bit of ribbon. “I just…bought it.” He offers Veronica a small smile, heart in his eyes. “I had you in mind actually. The colors reminded me of high school.”

A grin spreads across Veronica’s face. “Well, it’ll certainly liven up my law school wardrobe.”

As she hugs him in thanks, Logan leans down to murmur in Veronica’s ear. From Veronica’s barely noticeable blush and the small smack she gives him, Keith is pretty sure he is saying something suggestive about exactly what she can expect for the _rest_ of her presents.

All of a sudden, Keith feels very old. Old and crabby in that way that comes from being the only less-than-happy person in a roomful of happy ones. It is not a pleasant or adult feeling and he does his best to push it aside.

_Come on, Keith. Enjoy your time with your daughter._

He clasps his hands and rubs them together briskly. “What’s next for the old man?”

Thirty minutes later, the living room is an absolute disaster. Scraps of paper are scattered everywhere and several ribbons adorn the silver picture frame on the mantel containing a picture of Backup, may he rest in peace. Keith stretches out in the recliner, a red and white candy cane striped bow adhered to his bald spot, courtesy of Veronica.

The kids had insisted on cleaning up. _Sit down old man, we can do it. We don’t need you._ Veronica is in the kitchen finishing up the dinner dishes, while Logan is stuffing all of the torn paper and other present detritus into a large garbage bag.

Keith watches Logan move around the room. A bit stiff in the legs, but his upper body is moving easily. _More than I ever would have thought considering how he looked that first time in the hospital._ It had been a pretty big shock to see restless, full of life Logan so still in that bed.

Keith stands up from the recliner, casually snagging a wad of blue paper with polar bears printed on it and walking over toward Logan to stuff it into the trash bag.

“Logan, I’m glad you’re doing better.”

Logan nods, continuing to ball up paper. “Thanks, Mr. Mars. I couldn’t have done it without Veronica. She’s been a rock.”

“I’m sure she has. Veronica is a very impressive young woman.”

Logan’s head snaps up at that. _Kid always was good at reading subtleties in the air. Although, be honest with yourself Keith…that wasn’t very subtle._

“I know that Mr. Mars. I hope you know that I —”

Keith cuts him off. “I know that Veronica is a grown woman who makes her own decisions.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Mars. I would never have called her, you know. I wanted to…respect her wishes.” Logan offers softly but firmly. “I didn’t mean to uproot her life.”

Keith stares at him, the lights of the Christmas tree twinkling merrily in the background. “No, I know you didn’t. You never do.”

Veronica pops her head back around the partition. “Cookie?” She asks brightly, brandishing a reindeer shaped platter.

By silent mutual decision, the two men separate, Keith to the kitchen to pester Veronica, and Logan back to work in the living room.

In the kitchen, Veronica is softly warbling “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” while wiping down the counters. She looks up as Keith comes in and raises her volume to sing, “…so be good, for goodness sake!” directly at him.

Keith snags a cookie and leans against the kitchen island. “Excited about going back to Columbia, honey?”

Veronica looks a bit startled. “I guess. It’ll be good to have school to focus on again.”

“I wish I could come with you, hit up Madison Square Gardens again.” He mimes dribbling a ball and shooting it at her head.

Veronica throws up a hand to block his 'shot.' “I don’t know that she’s recovered from the last Mars family trip. Give her time, Dad. Give her time.”

“You’re all set to move in to the dorms?”

“Yep, I have the movers scheduled to get my stuff out of storage. I got a confirmation letter from housing and from admissions. Classes all picked out. Brain at the ready.”

She talks about going back to Columbia in much the same way she used to talk about working at The Hut—firm and decided, but no hint of excitement.

“It’ll be great to see your friends again, I bet.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“And that seminar you were talking about, the new one, Oil and Gas Law? That sounds fascinating.”

Veronica gives him an odd look. “Yeah, corporate fracking really revs me up. What’s this about, Pops?”

“Nothing, nothing. I just think the opportunities you have in New York are really impressive, that’s all.”

“I know they are,” Veronica says softly, her eyes on the counter. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that.”

“All right then, I’m just gonna go…” Keith drums a quick tattoo on the top of the island, “see a man about a horse.”

As he heads down the hallway, he can hear Veronica call from behind him, “Remember! More than two shakes and it’s playing with yourself!”

A few minutes later, hands and face freshly washed and happy smile firmly in place, Keith comes back down the hallway from the bathroom. Just before he re-enters the kitchen, he catches sight of Veronica, backing up to lean against one of the decorative pillars separating the kitchen and the living room. Veronica angles her body seductively and bats her eyes at…yep, Logan, who moves in closer, as though drawn helplessly.

Despite the shadows of the hallway, Keith is very visible if either of the two chose to turn their heads. Neither does though, so wrapped up in each other that they have blinders on.

Veronica slings her new scarf—which she has worn all evening—off of her neck and tosses it over Logan, wrapping it lightly around the back of his shoulders and pulling him in closer until they are pressed together. Logan seems reluctant and murmurs, “Your dad?” _There you go, kid._ In response, Veronica just smiles and tilts her hips up, trying to align with his. With a sigh, Logan reaches down to pick her up. Veronica wraps her legs around his waist and claims him for a deep kiss, humming happily into his mouth.

“Everything okay?” She asks, between smacking kisses.

“Everything’s great. Merry Christmas, Veronica.”

“Merry Christmas.”

Veronica looks so…happy. Beaming. It’s not that Keith hasn’t seen her happy recently. Her graduation from Stanford; that was a happy day. And their vacations, their trips to the boardwalk; she was happy then. _Wasn’t she?_ Seeing his daughter now, though, wrapped around her teen delinquent ex-boyfriend… _she hasn’t looked like this in years. I didn’t even think she could look like this any more. I thought that kind of open joy was gone into the mists of childhood_.

Keith backs up a few steps and loudly opens and closes a bedroom door to announce his presence. When he reaches the kitchen, Logan and Veronica are innocently engaged in putting away the dishes.

_I’m going to have to have that pillar sandblasted._

___________

 

_One day left._

It is ten in the morning and Logan is at the stove in the condo, making a large stack of pancakes—pretty much his one culinary talent—and listening to the distant sounds of Veronica taking a shower. She’d hinted heavily that he should join her, but he’d ducked out, promising her food—a surefire tactic that works as well with this Veronica as it did with the teen version—but really needing a bit of alone time to think.

Logan is sick, soul sick, and trying not to show it.

 _She’s going to be gone again. Gone out of my life._ He flips a pancake angrily and the batter of the uncooked side spatters out against the pan, making several small pancake-lets that immediately sizzle and darken. _No! Damn it! You know better than that._ And he does. He _knows_ that he and Veronica are together. Knows that she is committed to this relationship. But he just can’t help it. People leave and they don’t come back. The pattern is worn into a groove in his brain and he can’t seem to wrench his thoughts out of it.

_Not Veronica, she always comes back._

_And she’s not leaving you, you asshole. She’s said so dozens of times. How much more reassurance do you need, you grown-ass man?_

The bathroom door opens and Veronica carols out, “I smell pancakes!”

“Glad to know your keen sense of smell hasn’t diminished over the years.”

“Bloodhound Mars, that’s what they call me.” She enters the kitchen and about ninety percent of his doubts just fall away. They always do when he is looking at her like this.

Logan smirks and puts a hand out to pull her into him, but Veronica dances out of his reach and darts around behind him to smack his ass. Hard.

“Oww.” Logan rubs the offended muscle with a pout. “What was that for? Didn’t I ask you to stop abusing my poor, battered body?”

Veronica just grins in response. Her eyes are sparkling with mischief and her hair is still slightly wet from the shower. The lightly sweet scent of her body wash hangs enticingly in the air.

_This is it. This is us._

“Hey, Veronica.” He says, on a sudden impulse “Can we not talk about tomorrow at all today? I mean you’re going to leave and I’m going to miss you like hell and it’s going to suck, but let’s just…not talk about it? Let’s do something fun.”

Her eyes light up. “You’re reading my mind. Can we…” He waits patiently as she sorts mentally through her options. “Ooh! Can we go down to Fisherman’s Wharf and be touristy? I haven’t been there in forever and I’m jonesing for some salt water taffy.”

“Far be it from me to stand between you and sugar.”

“Smart man.” She grabs his collar and pulls his head down for a kiss, grinning wickedly in that way he loves. “ _My_ man.”

_I’m going to miss you so fucking much._

___________

 

The next morning, Veronica’s flight leaves at seven am. They wake in a warm tangle of naked limbs when it is still black outside. Not much is said. Veronica’s mind is heavy and there is a curious sort of tightness behind her eyes— _too much sun yesterday?_ —and Logan…well, he looks the way Veronica has seen him look before what he knows will be a particularly trying PT session.

San Diego’s Lindbergh Field airport is bustling. Even in January, the sparkling water of the Bay and the palm trees that line the waterfront make it seem more festive than any downtown airport has a right to be. Veronica is in no mood to appreciate the view. All of the cheerful denial of yesterday is used up and she is just… _Sad. You’re sad._

Veronica lets Logan park the car and come into the terminal with her without putting up a protest. Normally she’d scoff at the idea and ask him to let her out in the drop off area. She’s never let her Dad walk her in before; better to rip off the band-aid quickly. But…

_I mean it’s not like we’re breaking up. Not like it’ll be another seven years until you see him again. Buck the fuck up, Mars. Happy face._

Veronica snags her boarding pass from the kiosk machine and reaches behind her to grab the handle of her roller bag out of Logan’s hand. He yanks it out of her reach and says, “Uh uh uh!” in the least convincing teasing voice she’s ever heard from him. “Come here.”

He leans down and gives her a kiss. Warm and deep and long, it turns serious quickly; they breathe into each other, breathe for each other. She memorizes the feel of his lips, the smell of his skin. It is not sexual or devouring, but pure comfort; longing for something that isn’t even gone. Yet. When she starts to feel tears prickle behind her eyelids, Veronica pulls away.

They meander aimlessly forward a few more steps until the tail end of the security line—miraculously short for once—is in view.

Veronica reaches out to grab Logan’s hand and weaves their fingers together. “So…”

“So.” The corner of his mouth tilts up sadly.

_Goddamit. Do not cry, Veronica. Do not cry._

Veronica steps forward and allows herself to lean into Logan for another long moment, not hugging or squeezing, just laying herself against him, feeling his strength and vitality—so different than the broken man in the bed who she came back to five months ago. Logan’s hands come up to cup the back of her head, fingers lacing through her hair.

“I love you, Veronica.” He says, softly.

She pulls back a little and looks up, meeting his eyes straight-on in an unwavering moment of connection. “You know—”

He stops her words with a quick, hard kiss. Then Logan nods, brushing his thumb against her cheek, before dropping his hands and stepping back.

She stares up at him, needing to leave, but unable to keep herself from offering one more reassurance. “I’ll call you as soon as I get in to New York, okay?”

“Okay.”

Veronica gives a small nod and a little smile before hitching her bag higher up on shoulder and turning on her heel.

She makes it all the way to the security gates before looking back.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Marshmallowtasha** , always a fabulous beta, had a particularly large impact on this chapter. I owe her much thanks for her cogent insights!


	3. March, 2014

**March, 2014**

_______________ 

<< Saw that I missed your call. Free to talk at 8 my time? >>  
Fri. March 1, 2014, 7:10pm EST

<< Sorry! Had a simulation that ran over. You still around? >>  
Fri. March 1, 2014, 5:42 pm PDT

<< Veronica? >>  
Fri. March 1, 2014, 5:57 pm PDT

_______________

 

Long distance relationships suck.

That should be a truth universally acknowledged, if nothing else is.

After a long Monday, Veronica toes out of her boots at the door of her small studio apartment in Lenfast Hall—the Columbia Law School residence building—and tosses her messenger bag aside. She balances on one leg and rubs her ankle wearily; phone still clutched idly in her other hand. She can’t seem to put it down, these days. Logan’s twelve hour shifts on west coast time and her own east coast law student schedule mean that they have to be creative about their communication. In the two months since she left California, they’ve managed at least a short phone conversation almost every day, but the texting is what really makes her feel connected; sharing small moments, stupid thoughts, and endless sexual innuendos with him. The constant buzzing reminder of their connection in her pocket reassures her that their months together weren’t all just some odd high school fantasy.

Moving into the living room area, Veronica balls her hands up and presses her knuckles against the small of her back, arching to try to remove some of the kinks. It’s been a long day; four lectures, her Intellectual Properties seminar and several hours in the library preparing for said seminar. No real chance to talk to Logan all day.

Law school feels different this year. New York feels different. She had sort of expected to just slip back into her old life in New York, but it hasn’t turned out that way. She is not the same Veronica Mars that she was in August, but she's sure that it'll all come back eventually. After all, it's not like that much has really changed, right?

Her apartment is dim in the twilight, somehow cold and unwelcoming. A dull roar in the walls suggests that someone on her floor is running their shower. Trying to work up some enthusiasm for a shower of her own...dinner...anything other than just standing in place, feeling her feet ache, Veronica's attention is caught by an unusually pretty gleam of light on her wall. She drags a chair over to her small living room window and climbs up onto it. Cranes her head around the window air conditioning unit to take in the sliver of a view. A gorgeous, pale new moon hovers low over the city. It's mesmerizing, and she fishes for her phone to capture the unexpected slice of beauty. 

Snapping a picture of the twilight sky through the panes, the gothic spire of Riverside Church in the distance, backlit by the glow of the new moon, she attaches the picture to a quick text to Logan.

<< New York, New York looking pretty fine right now. >>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 8:42pm EST

She hops down, somewhat refreshed, and walks back towards the bathroom, stripping off her shirt and pants as she goes, and tossing the discarded clothing across the room in the direction of her bed - not a hard feat in three hundred and eighty square feet of space. _Yay, studio apartment life._ Lenfast is set up more like an apartment building than a dorm, the rooms furnished with modular Scandinavian-modern furniture that tries its best to make a small area feel spacious. It’s actually a really nice set up; one that many New York students would be envious of. Her initial decision to take an off-campus apartment at the end of last year hadn’t been because the university housing was so horrible. She’d just wanted some space away from the law school bubble. Of course, her precipitous flight across country had pretty much torched that. After her hasty deferral, she had been lucky to get a spot in Lenfast in the middle of the school year.  It’s not her favorite place to be, but it’s bearable.

Pausing momentarily in the middle of the “bedroom” space, Veronica unclasps her bra with one hand — _ah, sweet, sweet freedom—_ while with the other she absentmindedly checks her phone, fingers rubbing the screen. Nothing.

In the bathroom, Veronica carefully sets her phone down on the edge of the sink and washes her face and hands, doing a deep scrub to remove all of the make up and accumulated grime from the day. Face washed, she slips into yoga pants and a large t-shirt. Throughout her evening routine, she compulsively checks her phone. _As though you might have somehow missed an incoming message chime when it hasn’t been further than two feet away from you since you sent that text_. Not that she expects a message back right away. Logan is in a training session for at least another half an hour. He has to keep his phone completely off when he’s on the clock, but he should have a break coming up soon.

Veronica had only been back in New York for two weeks when Logan reported back for duty. The Navy has put him in the Fleet Replacement Squadron—basically a training squad that for some inexplicable navy related reason he refers to as the RAG—and he is working his way through all of the many tests and qualifications necessary to return to flying fighter jets. He’s still completely grounded, waiting for a few more doctor’s evaluations and simulation runs before he gets back in the air. Even without flying, being back on duty means ten to twelve hour days during the week for Logan. Veronica, taking a slightly heavier class load than usual to make up for her missed semester, doesn’t have it much easier. Add the three hour time difference to their schedules and they have to snatch chances for conversation whenever they can.

Ten minutes later, as Veronica moves around the small efficiency kitchen getting dinner ready, her phone buzzes on the counter. Abandoning her stir-fry mid stir, she jumps over to snag the phone and check the texts that have just come in.

<< Just finished my simulation run. >>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 6:12pm PDT

<< Sitting in the break room.>>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 6:12pm PDT

<< I’d send you a picture, but there’s nothing but puppy piss yellow walls here. >>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 6:13pm PDT

Veronica smiles and, turning the heat off under her dinner, wanders over to the living room area, typing out her reply as she flops down on the couch.

<< Yuck! Getting ready to eat over here. >>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 9:14pm EST

<< Time to talk? >>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 9:15pm EST

Sometimes Logan’s dinner break is long enough for them to have a phone conversation. She waits, hopeful, for his reply.

<< Sorry, no. >>   
Mon. March 4, 2014, 6:16pm PDT

<< Mock pre-flight training run in fifteen minutes. Got to get on the move soon. >>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 6:16pm PDT

Veronica’s stomach gives a little twist at the words “pre-flight” on her screen. _Mock. It’s just mock. He still has time left before he’s back in the air._

<< Later? After 8 my time? >>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 6:17pm PDT

Veronica mentally weighs her schedule the following day and her current level of tiredness. _Let’s see. It’ll be after eleven here…seven am class tomorrow._ Reluctantly, she responds.

<< Love to, but I’ll probably be asleep. Early day tomorrow.>>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 9:19pm EST

<< Well damn. >>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 6:20pm PDT

With an internal sigh, she heaves herself off the couch and starts to wander back to the kitchen. _Time differences can suck my big toe. And the Navy too._ Veronica contemplates her next text. She feels like she should ask how the simulation went but… _Nope._ As she reaches the stove to resume cooking dinner, she instead taps out, half without thinking, an old query from their scant months of living together.

<< So, whose turn is it to get dinner tonight? >>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 9:21pm EST

It’s partially a joke and partially an issue that she can’t seem to stop her mind from circling back to. With no job—or time to work— this summer, Veronica had been forced to reluctantly accept financial help from Logan for several things. Paying Dick back for the initial hotel bill, the dorm deposit once she gave up her apartment, money to move and store her New York belongings. She’d dipped into savings to pay for her own groceries and food and her plane tickets back to New York, but the degree to which she has been forced to accept Logan’s money galls her. It keeps her up at night sometimes. _Hi, I’m your newly reunited girlfriend of a month and you’re in traction, but I made choices you knew nothing about and didn’t ask for, can I have some money?_

Her thoughts are interrupted by Logan’s response.

<< I got dinner last night!>>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 6:22pm PDT

Despite the subject matter, Logan’s easy entry into their private joke makes her smile. He always claimed to have “gotten” dinner the previous night, no matter what had actually happened. She responds as expected.

<< Cheapskate. >>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 9:23pm EST

 _If I make a joke about it, it can’t hurt me, right?_ Veronica gives the stir-fry a distracted swipe with her spatula, suddenly less interested in eating. She is preoccupied with memories of their months together—their mock fights over dinner in Logan’s condo—and a longing to see his face in person. _Its funny how actually talking to someone can make you miss them even more._

<< I’ve got to go, Veronica. Got to get all the way over to the other hangar. >>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 6:25pm PDT

<< Okay. I’m just going to finish up dinner then hit the sack. >>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 9:26pm EST

<< Sleep well. May all your dreams be of me. >>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 6:27pm PDT

<< Can’t wait to Skype you on Saturday. >>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 6:27pm PDT

<< Ditto, Lieutenant. Talk to you tomorrow. >>  
Mon. March 4, 2014, 9:28pm EST

Veronica shoves her phone into the waistband of her yoga pants and slides the stir-fry out of the pan and onto a plate.

As she shovels down diced chicken and snow peas, she allows her mind to drift forward wistfully to Saturday. She tries her hardest not to dwell during the week—losing herself as much as possible in the busy life of a second year law student—after all, pining never made anything better. But at least every week they have Saturday; their best day. Starting at seven o’clock his time and ten o’clock her time, their standing Skype dates are supposed to be for an hour, but often stretch long into the afternoon. Last week they were both still in their pajamas and talking three hours after they signed on.

Veronica smiles to herself at the mental image of Logan last Saturday, adjusting his laptop camera downward and doing a whole series of squats, culminating in a silly Russian-style kicking dance, to demonstrate the improved flexibility of his leg. He’s pretty much back up to full strength now; she can hear it in his voice and see it in his movements when they Skype.  

A wide yawn splits her face and Veronica checks the time in surprise. She’s been sitting here, hovering over an empty plate, daydreaming about Logan for almost thirty minutes now. She shakes herself off, washes the dirty dishes, and starts to bed down the apartment for the night.

She sighs as she turns out the lights. _Long distance relationships suck._

_______________

<< Text me when you get a chance. I want to hear how the eval went. >>  
Tues. March 5, 2014, 3:36pm EST

<< Good news: I’m medically cleared to start qualifying runs. >>  
Tues. March 5, 2014, 2:14pm PDT

<< Bad news: I’m fairly sure the good doctor and I are now going steady. >>  
Tues. March 5, 2014, 2:14pm PDT

<< You’re into sharing, right?>>  
Tues. March 5, 2014, 2:15pm PDT _  
_

_______________

 

The phone’s ring startles Logan awake. It’s Wednesday morning, so his cell phone is resting right next to his pillow. As he rolls over and hits ‘answer,’ he glances at the bedside clock. 4:48am. _She’s running a little late today._

“Hey,” He rasps into the phone, running a hand over his face. “Good morning.”

“Shoot me if I ever again think it's a good idea to take a class built around working in teams.”

Logan grins a little to himself at his girlfriend’s pissed off tone—half actually angry and half playing it up for his benefit. He shifts himself a little, propping his torso up onto the pillows in a more comfortable position. “Minions failing to fall in line?”

“It would be better if they actually were minions. Minions have to do what you say, don’t they? They don’t spend hours of group preparation time arguing pointlessly over legal minutiae.”

In the background, Logan can hear the whooshing, rustling noises of passing air as Veronica hurries to her first morning class. He hasn’t actually been to Columbia yet, but he’s spent a somewhat embarrassing amount of time on Google Streetview looking at the campus’s layout. He can picture Veronica, in her black coat and boots (in his mind she’s always wearing boots) rushing down Amsterdam Avenue toward the law building.

“Just let me know who to aim a missile at.”

“Now there’s an effective use of our tax dollars.”

“Seriously, though. If you want to be a potentate with minions, you’ll need air support.”

“I _would_ be a good potentate.”

“This presentation is next week, right?”

“Yup. It’s going to be a miracle if—“ There are muffled sounds as if Veronica almost drops the phone. He can hear her exclaim “Sorry!” to someone before she brings her phone back up to her ear. “Sorry Logan, I almost ran someone down. Anyway, it’ll be a miracle if everything comes together on this one.”

“I have faith in your whip cracking skills.”

Even through the phone lines, Veronica’s responding low husky chuckle makes his dick twitch. “If I weren’t in public I’d follow up on that comment.”

He settles back even further into the pillows, hopefully. “Well _I’m_ not in public.”

“Mm? Well—“ She covers the mouthpiece and yells, “One sec!” at someone in the distance. Resigned, Logan rolls himself back over, burying his face in the mattress. He knows what’s coming.

“I’m sorry, Logan. I’m running so late today. I have to go. I’m right outside the room and class is about to start.”

“Mmm…I’m going to go back to sleep for about an hour before I have to be at the squadron.”

He can hear her blow out a puff of annoyed breath into the phone. “I hate you.”

“I wish you were here, too, sweet cheeks.”

_______________

<< What are you wearing? >>  
Thurs. March 7, 2014, 11:43am PDT

<< Still not funny, Logan. >>  
Thurs. March 7, 2014, 2:44pm EST

<< What’s funny is how you keep avoiding my questions >>  
Thurs. March 7, 2014, 11:45am PDT

<< Hiding something? >>  
Thurs. March 7, 2014, 11:45am PDT

<< Like…sexy lingerie? >>  
Thurs. March 7, 2014, 11:46am PDT

<< I’m in class right now. >>  
Thurs. March 7, 2014, 2:48pm EST

<< All I’m hiding is my phone under the desk >>  
Thurs. March 7, 2014, 2:48pm EST

<< Okay then, I’ll have to use my imagination. >>  
Thurs. March 7, 2014, 11:49am PDT

<< I’m picturing a g-string and stilettos. >>  
Thurs. March 7, 2014, 11:51am PDT

<< And I’m sure you’ll look smashing in them. >>  
Thurs. March 7, 2014, 2:57pm EST

_______________

 Mid-day is a busy time on NAS North Island’s tarmac, but Logan is unfazed by the whooping, air-rattling roar of take offs and landings all around him as he bounds away from his now stationary jet. His body buzzing with energy from the post-flight high, Logan can feel a completely unprofessional grin fighting to spread itself across his face. He jogs toward the edge of the runway area where Lt. Benjamin “Gooper” Barnes, one of the RAG’s Instructor Pilots, waits in the shade of the hanger. As he approaches, he can see the glint of humor and recognition in the other man’s eyes at Logan’s barely contained glee.

“Good run, Mouth.”

“Thanks.”

Gooper claps him on the back. “Okay, lets go in for debriefing.”

Logan shifts a little from foot to foot before forcing himself to stand firm. “I’ll be right there, Sir.”

“Need a drink?” It’s a hot day and Logan is flushed and sweaty from his cockpit exertions. “There’s a machine on the way.”

“Nah, gotta piss.”

“Ooh, out of the field for a few months and their bladders can’t keep up.”

Logan raises his eyebrows at the ribbing and pouts out his lower lip, body still thrumming with excitement.

The IP laughs, “Okay man, five minutes. Classroom three.”

Logan sprints off with a smile, the IP calling out, “Keep it off your shoes!” behind him. He darts into the hangar, weaving his way down familiar corridors. He passes the Men’s Room door at a quick jog and slips instead into an empty classroom in the semi-deserted corridor. He pulls his phone out, quickly powers it up, and hits a familiar series of buttons.

Veronica picks up on the first ring.

“Hey!” Her voice is surprised, pleased, and Logan grins at the sound, bursting with joyful energy. “I thought you still had another few hours left of your shift. What’s up?”

“I don’t have long, Veronica. I’m really not supposed to be on the phone right now.”

“What happened?” Her tone turns slightly worried. “Another doctor’s evaluation? I thought the last one—“

“I did my first flight today!” He cuts in, unwilling to let the moment spool out any further. “I just got back down and I had to sneak off and call you. I have debriefing in just a minute so I can’t talk long. It was…god, Veronica it was _amazing_. Everything went perfectly. The weather was perfect and the sight lines. They wouldn’t let me do too many maneuvers, just the basic sequence, but my ailerons were _perfect_ and I am—“

Logan breaks off, suddenly aware of the strangely intense sound of his girlfriend’s breathing on the other end of the line.

“Veronica?"

Her voice, when it comes, sounds tight and a little breathless. “Flying already! Wow. I thought you were supposed to have another week of…work-up training, or whatever.”

“Well, the doctors cleared me, and I think the CO could tell I was chomping at the bit, because he said with my flight record I should get back in the saddle.”

“Oh.” A brittle laugh skitters down the line. “Great.”

“It was.” Logan is cautious now. A bit hurt. _What the hell is this?_ “I flew well.”

“Well, good. I’m…so happy for you.” Veronica’s tone is sugar bright. _Danger. Danger, Will Robinson._

He is standing on the edge of a cliff. “Veronica, are you…angry?”

There is a big intake of breath on the other end and suddenly her voice is low and fierce. “Yes, goddamit I am. You’re supposed to tell me stuff. And this is _important_ and I didn’t even know and you just come out with it like—”

“Veronica, _I_ didn’t even know until yesterday.”

“Yesterday! Why didn’t you—”

“After we talked. Jesus. I thought you’d be happy for me. I mean, this is what I’ve been working so hard for.”

“Yeah, well I thought we _talked_ about things. I thought we were a couple.”

His stomach drops. “What the fuck Veronica, of course we are. What— where the hell is this coming from?” Logan is pacing now, his sweaty flight suit clinging uncomfortably to his body, his mental clock ticking down the time until he has to be in the debriefing room.

“I don’t know, Logan. You tell me.”

“What I _know_ is that you could have been fucking happy for me, instead of whatever the hell this is.” He grips the phone tightly, hearing the bitterness in his voice.Hating it. “Shit. I shouldn’t have called.”

Her voice is so cold it burns. “No, I guess you shouldn’t have.”

All of a sudden, a deep all-over fear clenches at him. _She wouldn’t._ “God, Veronica, I hate that I can’t see your face right now.”

“Yeah, well. That’s probably for the best.”

 _And…back to anger._ “Goddamit, Veronica. What the hell do you want from me?” He is yelling at her, something he promised himself never, ever to do.

“Nothing, Logan. Everything is fine. You should go.” That flat, draining voice again.

“I _have_ to go. I have a debriefing.”

“I know. Go.”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

“Goodbye Logan.”

__________

 

All that Dick Casablancas wants out of his evening is to have a few drinks with his oldest friend—see for himself that his buddy is still on the mend—and forget that there are any such things as REITs and FFOs.

When Logan swings open the door to his condo, however, it only takes one look at his absolutely wrecked face for Dick to know that the boozily peaceful evening of his imaginings is not to be.

_Well fuck, I should have started a pool. Could have made a lot of money today._

“Shit, man.” Logan runs a hand over his face. “I forgot we were going out.” He leans wearily against the doorjamb. “I’m not really up for it. Long day.”

Dick rolls his eyes and pushes into the room. “What the fuck ever, man. What did she do now?”

Logan trails after him into the condo’s spacious kitchen. _He’s moving well, at least._ “Why do you think this is about Veronica?”

“How the fuck long have we known each other, man? You think I don’t know what the effects of Hurricane Ron look like?”

“Don’t talk about her like that, Dick,” Logan says wearily but firmly, propping his elbows on the island and his forehead in his hands.

“Sure. You got it, bro.” Dick bends into the refrigerator and begins rummaging around for beer. _If we’re going to have girl talk I can at least have a fucking drink._ “Corona?” he asks.

Logan heaves a sigh. “Shit, Dick, I don’t even know what the hell happened. I did my first flight today—”

Dick freezes, head still deep in the crisper. “You went back up in a jet?”

“Yeah.”

 _Well no fucking wonder Ronnie is upset._ “I thought you weren’t cleared for that yet.”

“Just happened. Anyway, I called Veronica right after and she just…I dunno. She just exploded. She said we don’t communicate. I don’t have any idea what happened, all of a sudden we were both yelling.”

Dick straightens and tosses Logan a beer. Popping the top off of his own bottle with his thumb, he takes a long swig. “You should give her a call. Apologize.”

Logan half chokes on his own swallow of beer and looks at him strangely. “Wait, what? You don’t even _like_ Veronica.”

Dick shrugs and directs his gaze casually toward the ceiling. “Naw, man, and she’s not my biggest fan either but, I dunno. It was pretty much just her and me at the hospital most of the time. ‘Way I figure it, we’re kinda like foxhole buddies. You know, bonded through common tragedy and all that.”

“So I’m your common tragedy, am I?”

“Well, watching while the nurses changed your shit bags sure wasn’t a comedy.”

Logan rolls his eyes. “Thanks Dick. Your support means everything to me.”

_You have no fucking clue, buddy. But if you want to keep going up there I’m not going to be the one to tell you to be scared about it._

“Look man, she was there for you every single day and you love her and shit. You can’t freak out just because she lets her true psycho out every once and a while. Call her.”

_____________

 

_Just call her._

Three hours is a funny amount of time, Logan thinks later that night, after Dick leaves. In a jet, supercruising at Mach 1, he could cover—he does some brief mental calculations—about 2,300 miles in three hours. That’s almost the entire distance from San Diego to New York City; piece of cake. Down here on the ground, though, the three hour time difference sometimes seems like an insurmountable hurdle.

Veronica loves him; Logan knows that. He does. When he got hurt, she came all the way across the country—dropped her entire life—just to be with him. It was in her eyes, in her touch, at the hospital. They hadn’t seen each other in almost seven years and she came. She stayed. She said ‘always.’ He hugs that knowledge to himself tightly in moments of unease and fear.

Moments like this one.

He knows that it’s not easy for her to say the words—it never has been—but this time he’s determined that, when she does say it, it will be freely given. He’s promised himself that there will be no prompting. No anxiously spoken ‘I love you’s followed by expectant, laden pauses. He wants her to offer it up freely. He’s a greedy bastard.

The thing is...if she came back because she loved him, then that means she loved him when she left, too. And that is terrifying, because Logan’s life has taught him that love doesn’t conquer all and god knows they’ve got a lot to conquer.

He knows this is just a fight.

Just a fight. Couples fight.

He should let them both cool off and call her in the morning.

And yet…

_____________

<< I’m sorry for yelling, for what it’s worth. >>  
Fri. March 8, 2014, 8:13pm PDT

<< I really want to talk to you, but can we move our Skype date to later? I’m not going to be near my computer Saturday morning. >>  
Fri. March 8, 2014, 8:14pm PDT

<< K. >>  
Fri. March 8, 2014, 11:38pm EST

_____________

<< Look, I’ve cooled off. When do you want to Skype? >>  
Sat. March 9, 2014, 8:23am EST

<< Logan? >>  
Sat. March 9, 2014, 8:42am EST

<< I’m going for a run and leaving my phone. I’ll be online after 10 my time. Call me or don’t. >>  
Sat. March 9, 2014, 9:02am EST

_____________

The running route along the Greenway is great for scenery, but apparently singularly unsatisfactory for a good, angry pavement smackdown. _What I really needed_ , Veronica reflects as she trots back into the lobby of Lenfast, _was some sort of eighties movie style running montage through old abandoned factories. I could have worked off my anger on the ancient machinery, kicked a few conveniently hanging punching bags_. She keeps her earbuds in until she passes the staff at the security desk—who seem to be taking an inordinate interest in her—tossing them a quick wave.

Veronica gets into the elevator and punches the button for her floor, feeling the anger and chagrin and guilt all still warring within her. As pissed as she is that Logan hasn’t responded to her recent texts, she knows that she just needs to suck it up and call him herself.

 _After all, you did start it. This is your problem. Just call him. Call him and say… _with a grunt, she shakes her head. That’s always the part where she gets stuck. Say what?

She gets off the elevator and walks down the hallway, stopping at her door to bend over and retrieve her key from her shoe. Wearily she unlocks and opens the door, thoughts already on the cell phone she left charging in the kitchen and how she’s going to go in and she’s going to—

“Don’t freak out, it’s just me.”

Veronica rotates slowly and sees…

Logan.

Sitting on her couch.

Her voice strangely calm and neutral, Veronica asks, “How did you even get in here?”

He offers her a shaky smile. “Did you know the front desk staff in your building finds the story of you reuniting with your Navy hero high school ex-boyfriend after a tragic accident ‘ _very romantic’_?”

“Logan! What did you—”

“Hey, I didn’t tell them anything, just my name and that I was here to see you. They knew the whole story. Well, a version of it anyway.”

_Damn that US Magazine article, anyway._

Logan stands awkwardly and wipes his hands on the front of his jeans.

Veronica is still frozen across the room. “But I’ve never even _talked_ to this building’s front desk security. I’m not even sure I know who…she?” Logan nods and Veronica rolls her eyes. “Of course. I’m not even sure I know who she is.”

“We live large, Mars.”

Veronica is shaking her head ruefully when it suddenly hits her just who exactly she is bantering with. “Oh my god, Logan.” _He’s here._ She takes one step forward. Two. Then with a funny little tripping hop she somehow finds herself half-way across the room and clutching him. “I can’t believe you’re here!”

“Yeah,” he breathes softly into her hair. “Hey.”

“Hey.” He smells like that comfortingly familiar mix of his deodorant and his warm skin, and it has been almost two months, and he is _here_. She takes a moment just to appreciate those facts, resting her forehead against his chest. “What are you doing in New York? I thought you weren’t going to be able to get any time off for a long time?”

“This isn’t exactly time off.” He ducks his head a little, no longer meeting her eyes. “More like my weekend.”

“You have to be back at work on Monday?”

“Yeah. Quick turnaround.” He rotates his shoulders and grimaces. “I’d forgotten how crappy commercial air travel is.”

Veronica automatically reaches up and starts rubbing the muscles along his shoulders and neck. Logan lets out a small groan and drops his head onto her shoulder, leaning into her hands. “I’ve been thinking about getting a little prop plane – making the trip out here will be easier and eventually cheaper if I can fly myself.”

Veronica’s hands drop and she steps away from Logan, sending him off balance.

“Aren’t those planes ridiculously dangerous? They crash all the time!”

Logan looks up, holding her eyes warily, unsure of the new mood that suddenly fills the small apartment. “Amateur pilots. I know what I’m doing, Veronica. I fly jets for a living.”

Veronica can feel that familiar and hated fear fluttering and clenching in her gut. “I _know_ you do.” She bites her lips and starts to turn away, but then she whirls back to face him. “Isn’t that enough, dammit? You’re already back to doing this thing that almost killed you and now you want to add _more_ flying?”

“Hey!” Logan is wounded. “I’m a good pilot Veronica. My crash was caused by mechanical failure. I didn’t do anything wrong. Do you think the Navy would let me—”

“You didn't see yourself in that bed!”  The echo of her shriek seems to hang in the air, barely even recognizable to Veronica as her own voice. It’s as though she opened her mouth and it just ripped out of her; all of her darkest fears suddenly made manifest. Her breathing is harsh.  

Logan, two steps away, is clearly stunned; his body frozen mid-movement.  “No, I didn't.” He says carefully.

Veronica can feel her chin trembling. _Shit_. She starts to back up as the words keep tumbling out. “And then you’re right back up there and now you want to go fly in that little plane and you're practically a Kennedy.” A hiccuping laugh escapes her.  “You don’t exactly have the best luck, Logan.”

“Veronica…”

“Look, I know you’ve lost a lot of people, but I’ve lost a lot of people too. And if you…” Her jaw works. “Well I just… dammit, Logan.” She stops backpedaling, her back against the waist-high counter that separates the kitchenette from the living area.

“Veronica, why didn’t you say any of this before?”

“It makes me feel like this hysterical _girl_.” She spits the last word out. “And I don’t like that. I don’t like myself like this.”

Logan starts toward her slowly, his hands carefully by his side. “God, Veronica. This is not your fault. Not even a little. I’ve known something was worrying you and I didn’t ask because it just seemed easier. That was stupid of me.” He stops and runs a hand through his hair. “Dick tried to tell me but—“

“ _Dick_?”

“Yeah, I know. He’s developed a surprising amount of emotional intelligence, of late.” That lopsided smile does _not_ make her any less angry. It does not. He continues toward her. “I had no idea you felt this way.”

She wants to wrench her eyes away from his, but they are locked together. _This is too hard. Too hard._ “I know you didn’t. I didn’t say anything.”

“But I should have known—”

“ _No,_ Logan. Don’t take this all on yourself.”

“Veronica, I am _so sorry_ that I didn’t think about how hard this would be for you.”

She takes a deep breath and dives right to the heart of it. “Why?” She asks quietly.

Logan halts, mere feet and a gaping cavern away. “Why? I don’t—”

“Why do you need to do this? Why do you need to go back to flying?”

“Partially for you, actually.” She can see the fear in his eyes and it twists at her stomach.

“For me!”

“Well, for us. I can’t…yeah, I know I can’t go back to who I used to be and keep our relationship. I can’t let that happen. You’re the most important thing in the world to me.”

“Logan…” Veronica shakes her head helplessly, all of her anger gone, leaving her curiously deflated. “There is a lot of ground between aimless drifting and flying those death traps.” He winces slightly. “Couldn’t…couldn’t you just do something else in the Navy?”

“Yes.” He says quietly.

“But?”

Logan shakes his head. “There is no ‘but.’ I could do something else. Do you want me to?”

Veronica looks at him, standing there straight and proud, his warm brown eyes filled with emotion for her and terror for them. _He would do it. He would dismantle everything he’s built, for you._ All of his years of hard work, the career she knows he loves, the self-control and drive she admires so much, he is offering those to her on a platter. Weighed out against that, her fear, the all-consuming beast, seems momentarily petty and small. _He would do it and he would be okay. He would build again. But you, you would never recover from this cowardice and your selfishness._ That thought, heavy and nauseating, hangs in balance against the small, still and persistent voice in the back of her head, repeating like a sick refrain, _he could die. He could die_. Logan waits patiently for her answer, no pressure, only love in his gaze.

Her voice is a bare thread of a whisper. “No.”

“Veronica?”

_He could die._

She clears her throat and reaches back, her knuckles straining as she grips the edge of the counter for support. “No, I don’t want you to do anything except what makes you the happiest. I know you love flying, I just…I need you to help me find a way to be okay with it.” Logan hesitates, his expression torn, and Veronica finds the strength to add, “Please.”

He reaches for her shoulders and reels her in, “Okay, Veronica. Okay.” Her name is a caress on his lips, the sweetest of endearments. They stand there, breathing together, and _yeah, okay, this does make things better. If only we could have all of our conversations about this while he’s holding me_.

“Can we...?” He nods questioningly at the couch and Veronica smiles shakily in the affirmative. They walk over toward the couch together, pressed against each other awkwardly, Logan’s hand planted on her face, Veronica’s fingers digging into the flesh of his waist underneath his t-shirt.

When they reach the couch and sit down side by side, Logan sort of collapses over into her, burying his face in her abdomen and wrapping his arms around her waist. “Hey, hey,” Veronica says as she runs her fingers through the soft hair at the back of his neck. Logan isn’t crying, but there is still a fine trembling running through both of them, the adrenaline high leaving their bodies. “We’re fine. I swear we’re fine.”

Veronica’s shirt has bunched up so that Logan’s face and forehead are resting against her bare stomach. Every time he exhales it sends goosebumps coursing over her skin. She continues lightly fingering his hair and rubbing his scalp; grounding them both. Her decision made, Veronica suddenly feels oddly centered and calm. 

Logan's voice is low and hoarse when he speaks. “Veronica, no prop plane. I promise.”

“Good.” 

“But are you _sure_ you’re okay with me staying with the squad?”

“I’m…I want to be completely honest with you here, Logan.” She tugs at his shoulders a little and he sits up, loosening his grip around her waist, their faces scant inches apart.

“Good, me too.” He laces their fingers together behind Veronica’s back.

“I’m not fully okay with it right now, you were so…you were so _hurt_ and I—” She tightens her hands around his. “I’m going to be okay with it, though. Because I want to be, for you. ” 

Logan leans in and kisses her tenderly on the lips. They fall over together onto the couch, his full weight on top of her, surrounding and reassuring her. _He’s alive. He’s here. It’ll be fine._

She kisses his neck, his pulse point, the lobe of his ear. “Do you think that maybe next time I’m home you could get me a pass on base and show me your plane?”

“Of course.”

Now would be the ideal time for frantic reunion make-up sex, but god, she’s so blissed out already just from his weight, his smell, his presence, that Veronica doesn’t even know if her body could handle it. Logan seems to feel the same way, contenting himself with slow caresses and small kisses of whatever body parts he can reach while his breathing evens out.

“Say something happy,” he finally asks, his voice muffled in the crook of her shoulder. “Anything happy.”

“Hm,” Veronica deliberately turns her mind from their discussion, giving him what he’s asking for. “Well, I managed to make it through an entire two hour long group meeting yesterday without killing anyone. _And_ ,” she says, in the manner of one very proud of an accomplishment, “I only rolled my eyes _three times_ ; I kept track with hash marks on my legal pad; I can show you if you want.”

Logan laughs a little helplessly. “Pass. I'm duly impressed with your ability to rein in your murderous impulses.”

She smiles. “Now you.”

“I…got to see my girlfriend today for the first time in two months.”

Overwhelmed with...oh god, just with him, Veronica stretches her neck upward and kisses Logan, long and deep. She comes up for air—“Geez, why d’you you always have to go straight to the mushy stuff?”— and peppers his face with little kisses to his nose, his cheeks, his eyelids, and finally back to his lips again, lingeringly. “Makes me look bad.”

He sighs happily into her mouth and rests their foreheads together, cocooning them in their own private world.

Veronica closes her eyes. “Logan, we’ve got to figure out how to fight over the phone like normal people. You can’t drop everything and fly out here every time one of us gets freaked out.”

He scoffs, sliding his hands gently up and down her sides, “We’re not normal people and I will _always_ come running when you get freaked out.”

Veronica’s tone is dry. “Not when you’re thousands of miles away on a boat in the middle of the ocean you won’t.”

Logan freezes over her momentarily. “Point: Mars. Okay then.” He exhales gustily and collapses his full weight back onto her as if in defeat. “Phone fighting?”

“Phone fighting.”

He whines playfully, “But I miiiiss you!”

 “I miss you, too,” Veronica replies quietly.

__________________  

<< So tired. Long day flying.>>  
Wed. March 13, 2014, 6:52pm PDT

<< You’ll have to take care of all of tonight’s sexual innuendo yourself. >>  
Wed. March 13, 2014, 6:53pm PDT

<< Oh, I’m so sorry. Are you having a hard time? >>  
Wed. March 13, 2014, 9:54pm EST

<< ... >>  
Wed. March 13, 2014, 6:65pm PDT

<< Well played. >>  
Wed. March 13, 2014, 6:55pm PDT

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many thanks are due to my fabulous beta, **marshmallowtasha** whose comments always push me and whose enthusiasm always lifts me. Thank you so much! 
> 
> Thanks also to the awesome **lilamadison11** for lending her keen graphic eye to the question of the text message formatting in this chapter. 
> 
> The workskin used to create the text message formatting was adapted from [this tutorial](http://thisprettywren.tumblr.com/post/47108180443/a-how-to-guide-for-ao3-workskins). This formatting will probably show up in a few more chapters and I hope it adds to, rather than detracts from, the reading experience. I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who has a hard time getting it to display correctly!


	4. April, 2014

**April 2014**

 

Logan’s nose is nuzzling at her inner thigh, his hot breath caressing her, tongue licking a firm stripe higher, higher…when the phone’s ring blares directly in her ear. Veronica shoots up in bed, waking from a sound and much needed sleep and gropes blearily through the covers, trying to untangle herself. She smacks away the clumps of sheets tangling around her legs and lunges for her cell phone, picking it up on the last ring, adrenaline coursing through her body. 

“Who’ser’s’ogan?” is what comes tumbling out of her mouth.  

“Uh…Veronica?”

She clears her throat, relaxing at the sound of Logan's voice. “Yup.”

“Just making sure my girlfriend hadn’t been taken over by a Bork.”

She snorts wetly, drawing a chuckle from the other end of the line. “Oh zip it, Logan. It’s almost two am here. You want coherence, call earlier.” In spite of the unholy hour and her grumbling, Veronica is smiling into the phone. She and Logan hadn’t had a chance to speak all day and, even in the middle of the night, she can’t help but think how good it is to hear his voice. Especially considering how amused he sounds.

His answering smile comes across the miles. “I’m sorry to call so late but…guess what, number one girl?”

“Uh oh, does number two girl need to bump me out of line for Skype time this weekend?”

“I have accrued leave!”

“What?” Veronica sits bolt upright. “I thought it was going to be months before you got any time off!”

Logan had just rejoined his squad—the VFA-82 Shadow Hawks, recently returned from deployment—two weeks previously. He’d finished up his re-training and evaluation in the RAG with flying colors and near perfect scores, pleasing, as far as she could tell, everyone from himself all the way up to the main commander-y guy person. Captain?  _Whatever. It’s two am._

“When I got back to my squad they decided to count some of my recovery as time served and…I have five days!”

“When are you coming?” The idea that he would do anything with his leave but come to see her doesn’t even cross Veronica’s mind. It has been almost two months since they’ve seen each other in person, and that was just a quick one-day turn around. They had both been so dazed from their first serious fight that they'd pretty much just stayed in Veronica’s apartment in constant physical contact for twenty-four hours before Logan had to get back on a plane and head home for work on Monday.

“One week my…special lady friend.”

“Ew. No.”

 

______________

 

<< Call me later. Have a favor to ask. >>  
Wed. April 16, 2014, 1:22pm EST

<< I’ll call you on my dinner break tonight.>>  
Wed. April 16, 2014, 11:36 am PDT 

<< I got my tickets.>>  
Wed. April 16, 2014, 11:36 am PDT 

<< Coming in at 1pm Friday.>>  
Wed. April 16, 2014, 11:37 am PDT

<< I’ll be naked and waiting.>>  
Wed. April 16, 2014, 1:47pm EST

<< Jesus, Veronica, are you trying to kill me? >>  
Wed. April 16, 2014, 11:49 am PDT

<< Pics or it didn’t happen>>  
Wed. April 16, 2014, 11:50 am PDT

 

_______________

 

The last few days before he goes to see Veronica seem to crawl by; their separation made more difficult by the knowledge that they will be together soon. Up to this point, Logan has mostly been able to settle into the rhythm of the long distance thing. Phone calls at random hours, constant texting—and the ribbing that comes from the guys every time he hops to when the text chime sounds. Nights curled up next to a memory instead of a warm body.

Coming back after seeing her in March had been hard, like she’d been real again for just one brief moment and then had shrunk back into being a voice on the other end of the phone, a small image on a laptop screen.

Now, the promise of four and a half days of uninterrupted face time is like a drug. He’s able to switch the constant thoughts of Veronica off while he’s in the air, but he’s barely present during his post-flight debriefs. Cheese has to poke him in the back of the head with a pencil several times to get his attention and he fills out a chart incorrectly for the first time since he was a nugget, earning him a small reaming from his XO.

Still, the days do pass eventually.

The last night before he leaves for New York, Logan finds himself driving the familiar streets of Neptune at dusk, on an errand he’d rather avoid: heading to Veronica’s father’s house to pick up some clothes she’d left there over the summer.

He fiddles with the radio controls as he pulls into Keith’s driveway, his free foot tapping lightly against the floor mat. Keith is expecting him; Veronica had texted that her dad had the stuff boxed and ready to go. This should just be a quick encounter. In, grab the boxes, out.

Yup. No problem at all.

Keith is never less than scrupulously polite, after all. At times, especially when Logan was in the hospital, he’s even been kind. He’d brought food to Logan’s hospital room on more than one occasion while Veronica was out at some unavoidable errand and sat with Logan—in mostly companionable silence—watching sports on television.

But still, under all of that, is the same hint of…disappointment? disapproval?... that has been present since Logan was twelve. When he was younger it was easier to shrug off. After all, a lot of adults didn’t like him very much—he didn’t like them either. Why should he? Even Keith Mars, undisputed King of the Neptune fathers, was just some dumb old guy who wouldn’t understand Logan anyway.

But, lately, that feeling has been hitting a little closer to the bone; Christmas _chez_ Mars had been especially difficult. This is it for him and Veronica; their chance. Their _last_ chance. And Keith is so important to her. Logan isn’t really sure if she’s aware of how much her father’s perceptions of him have colored the various versions of their relationship through the years.

But he’s not begging. He’s not going to go hat-in-hand pleading with Keith Mars to like him. To say nice things to Veronica about him. He doesn’t need or want a father figure at this late point in his life and, if he did, his job would give him plenty of options.

Logan sighs and straightens his spine as he knocks on the door. Keith swings it open almost immediately, as if he’d been waiting on the other side.

One would think that years spent in the military being yelled at by all sorts of top drawer assholes would render his girlfriend’s pudgy, balding, elderly father less scary.

One would be wrong.

“Sir,” he holds his hand out in the now customary greeting.

“Logan,” Keith shakes his hand briefly and ushers him into the small living room. “Veronica’s stuff is in the guest room.”

Logan falls in behind Keith as they walk silently through the kitchen and toward the back hallway. Surreptitiously, he studies the man from behind. He hasn’t seen Keith Mars since Christmas, but the man seems basically the same. In good health. Ageless and indestructible. He knows Veronica won’t ask, but he wants to be able to tell her how her father looks anyway.

Actually, that’s probably half of their problem; Logan can’t see Keith without thinking _Veronica. Veronica. Veronica_ and he knows the same is true for her father. Her name, her well-being, is the solid beating heart underlying their every interaction. If they were meeting for the first time as adults with no history, maybe he could be easy with Keith. Maybe Keith could respect him. As it is, though, the one thing they have in common is also the biggest thing keeping them apart.

They reach the back bedroom and Logan hoists the cartons half-full of summer weight clothes easily, turning silently on his heel and heading back out toward the front door. This time Keith is following him.

They reach the threshold. _And now time for the awkward goodbye portion of this extremely awkward interaction._

“You look good, Logan. No limp.”

Logan shifts the boxes in his hands. “Yeah, I’m pretty much back to normal. Back in the squadron and everything.”

“I’m really glad to hear that.” Keith’s expression is inscrutable. “Tell Veronica I said ‘hi’ and that I’ll call her later in the week. Give you two some time to enjoy yourselves.” Voice carefully neutral. Body under control. _Damn, he’s good._

“I’ll do that. Thanks Mr. Mars.”

Another handshake and he’s gone.

 

______________

 

Veronica comes back from her block of Friday morning classes practically vibrating with excitement. She’s planning to skip most of her classes on Monday and Tuesday—a first for her—so they had decided calmly and rationally that she’d better go to her Friday seminars instead of picking Logan up at the airport. _What a shitty decision. Screw calm and rational._

She had paid basically no attention in class anyway, her usual laser-like focus deserting her in favor of checking her phone and watching the minutes tick by excruciatingly slowly.

She’d practically flown out of the seminar room and ran back toward Lenfast. If everything had gone according to schedule, Logan should have arrived and picked up the spare key she left at the desk for him. He hadn’t sent a text since telling her he got off the plane, though, so…

She opens the door, and he’s standing there, smiling.

She manages one quip—“This is significantly less creepy than last time, since I knew you were coming.”—before launching herself at him. Logan scoops her up and spins her around, lips meeting ecstatically. His fingers crush into her hips and the sheer joy of seeing him, feeling him, threatens to split her open. They barely make it back to Veronica’s bed before they are stripped naked and reuniting in the most primal of ways.

 

_____________

 

It’s Sunday morning and a full thirty-six hours of really excellent sex later before they come up for air. With a long, cat-like stretch, Logan leaves the small bed and wanders over to stand at the window, snagging his boxers from off the lamp along the way. He leans his forehead against the glass, looking out on the streets and the park.

After a moment, he turns away from the view and yawns, scratching his side absently.  “So, we probably can’t just stay inside and sex for the whole five days.”

Veronica looks up from her position sprawled naked across the bed. Utterly replete, she’d been content to watch Logan move around the small apartment, idly appreciating the musculature of his back and the smoothness he’d regained in his movements since the accident. “Hey, wait a minute. Why not?”

“Because, I’ve only been to New York a few times before and it was years ago, when I was a kid. I want to see the city. With you.” He smiles a little sadly. “So that I can picture you here.”

Veronica pouts. “Are you doubting my ability to make memories right here?” She sits up, propping her back against the wall, and spreads her legs a little in exaggerated seduction. Logan lets out a playful growl and, taking a running start from across the room, leaps on top of her, kissing her loudly and messily on the side of her neck.

He lifts his mouth suddenly from her, the separation making a brief suction noise that makes Veronica giggle. “I know! Let’s go…” His eyes light up. “Let’s go see the Statue of Liberty!”

Veronica drops her head back to thunk against the wall. “Logan. Seriously?”

“Hey! We’re in New York. I want to _see_ New York.”

“Jesus. All right, Tourist 101 it is. What else?”

“We could…see a show?”

“We’re really doing this up to the max, aren’t we? Any other requests, Broadway Baby?” Veronica wiggles a little, spreading her legs and repositioning herself so that her bare core is pressed against him through his boxers, and watches in glee as his gaze goes unfocused. Logan breathes in through his nose and bears down a bit, drawing a low grunt out of her. _Yes, there._ Then he gentles the motion with soft kisses down the column of her neck.

Taking the lobe of her ear gently between his teeth, he bites lightly, whispering into her skin. “Take me to your favorite place in the city.”

This time it is Veronica’s eyes that light up.

Logan grins, releasing her ear and relaxing against her. “This is going to involve food, isn’t it?”

“Oh, how well you know me.”

“I do indeed.”

“But Vincenza’s doesn’t open for a few hours, so…in the meantime—” With a deft move, she crawls out from under him and gains the upper hand, pinning him to the bed with her hands and knees, hovering over him. “—I’m going to have my way with you. Prepare to be appropriately ravished.”

He waggles his eyebrows at her. “Roger ball.”

“What does that mean?” Veronica asks in between kisses, even though she could probably figure it out from the context, because she’s trying very hard to pick up the pieces of Logan’s Navy life that he throws out instead of letting them drift by unacknowledged.

“I’m confirming that you’re cleared for landing.” He grins wickedly and starts to lunge upward for a kiss.

She puts up her hands to block him. “Nuh uh. Nope. We are not doing cutesy Navy metaphors for sex. That is not going to become a thing.”

She can hear him mutter “Waved off,” under his breath as he flops back down onto the bed.

“You’ll thank me years from now when you’re not one of those military men who can only speak in incomprehensible slang about their glory days,” She chews an invisible stogie, “Straightening up ship shape, bogey, one-six-zero-niner, lets roger bingo at ‘em boys!”

Logan stares at her. “That means nothing.”

“Exactly.” Veronica nods sagely and goes in for a kiss.

_______________

 

The next two days fill up with trips around town and Veronica’s phone fills up with pictures of Logan wearing various ridiculous bits of tourist-iana (her favorite is him in the hat shaped like the Statue of Liberty’s spikes) and making funny faces. They do dinner one night with a few of her law school friends, but otherwise they exist in a self-contained bubble.

She talks him out of the red double-decker bus tour. He talks her into the West End revival of _Cats_.

Life is that wonderful combination of normalcy—shared sinks, cooking in their underwear, legs tangled on the couch—and the heightened fun of vacation.

All too soon, it’s Tuesday, Logan’s last full day in New York. As they lay smooshed together in Veronica’s small bed, Logan watches the morning light trace its way across the floor. He props his head up on his hand and pokes Veronica until she smiles sleepily at him.

“Hey, today can I take _you_ to _my_ favorite place in the city?”

She yawns a little and pets her hands down his abdomen. “I keep forgetting that you’ve been here before.”

“Yeah, not since I was a kid with my Mom, but…have you been to The Frick?”

“You know, oddly I haven’t. It’s not all that far from Columbia, but…” she shrugs.

“Will you let me take you?”

Veronica smiles at him. “You don’t mind a little walking, do you?”

Logan holds up one foot and wiggles it in her direction. “Made for walkin’.”

“Well, let’s just take the A Train down to the seventies and then cut through Central Park to 5th Avenue.”

Logan presses a kiss to her nose. “Lead the way, Macavity.”

“Hey!” Veronica swipes her hand, paw-style, over her ear. “I told you, I am clearly Mister Mistoffelees.”

They take their time getting up and ready, so it is early afternoon by the time they leave Lenfast and stroll to the 116th St. station. It’s a warm, spring-y kind of day; the summer stickiness hasn’t arrived yet, but winter is definitely behind them. Even the died-in-the-wool New Yorkers are breaking out their lighter clothing, and the typically black-clad crowd on the subway platform is dotted here and there with colorful dresses and shorts.

When the train arrives, Veronica steps easily across the gap and automatically takes her accustomed place in the car, leaning against a center pole, feet firmly planted, gaze fixed off in the distance. It feels weird to be on the subway without her earbuds in.

Logan takes his time making his way down the car toward her and Veronica can’t help thinking that he looks so…wrong here. It’s not that he’s dressed inappropriately, but when she thinks of Logan she thinks of outdoors—the sky, the surf, a California colored palate. In the dingy yellows and grays of the subway he seems out of place. Like an exotic animal that has been captured and released in a new habitat.

He’s taking in the sights and sounds (and smells) of the transit car with a distinctly bemused air that she remembers well from her first few months in the city. She’s been in New York long enough now, however, that…

“Stop looking around.” She whispers out of the corner of her mouth as he joins her against the pole. “They’ll make you as a tourist.”

“I _am_ a tourist.”

She turns slightly, leaning her side into him as the train banks around a curve. “Eh. If you must be, you must be. I’ll admit, it _is_ sort of nice to show someone around who doesn’t want to only visit the sporting facilities.”

Logan wraps one arm around her waist, making a moue of distaste. “So we’re _not_ going to visit the Polo Grounds?”

“I’m…pretty sure those don’t exist anymore.”

“Veronica?”

Banter interrupted, Veronica turns around at the sound of a familiar voice hailing her from the opposite end of the car. She blinks for a second, trying to associate the memory with the face looking back at her eagerly and _holy shit._

“Piz?”

“Hey!” Piz waves enthusiastically and pops up off of his seat, leaving his coat and bag behind— _he either hasn’t been in the city long, or he hasn’t changed at all_ —to bound toward her. He trips over an older woman’s shopping bag, pausing to apologize profusely before finally reaching the middle of the car. Veronica moves to greet him, pitching forward a bit as the train lurches to a stop and people rush in and out of the car. Piz lays his hand on her shoulder for balance, putting them in the natural position for a hello hug.

Veronica assesses him as they pull back. He’s dressed all in black like a good New Yorker and has a considerably more sophisticated hair cut than she remembers, but the eager grin is pure college-era Piz. She smiles fondly and his grin amps up a few degrees in wattage in response.

He spreads his fingers out at her in a gesture of excitement. “Wow. I can’t believe it’s you! Wallace mentioned that you were in New York, but I didn’t really think…”

“Yup, and you remember Logan.” Veronica twists her head backward in time to see Logan offer a slightly grim smile and a head nod in Piz’s direction. She backs up a few feet to lean once more against Logan as the train jerks back into motion.

Piz startles. “Oh, yeah man. Of course. How are—I mean I saw in the news about your crash. You look great. And you two are—of course you are. Why else would you be here?”  Piz crosses his arms, tucking his hands into his armpits and sucking his lips between his teeth in a clear attempt to stop the flow of words coming out of his own mouth. It doesn’t quite work. “Good to see you.”

Logan’s response is a simple, “Yeah.”

“So you’re here in New York visiting Veronica?”

“Yes.” Logan’s hand lands heavily on her hip.

“I’m at school at Columbia,” Veronica offers, but Piz remains focused on Logan as they surf the motion of the train car.  

“But you’re still deployed out to California, right?”

“I’m stationed in San Diego, yes.”

“Cool. Cool. Uh, thanks for your service.” Piz finally turns his attention back toward Veronica, a wide smile on his face. “Columbia, huh? Wallace mentioned something about law school. That’s right off the 116th St. station, right? I take the A Train to work pretty much every day. Guess we were bound to run into each other some time!”

Veronica’s eyes widen and her smile remains fixed, she can feel Logan stiffen behind her, his posture has been rigid and locked for the last few minutes.

Piz continues. “Well, hey. We should get together. Are you going to be here this summer?”

“Um…” Veronica shoots a glance backwards at Logan. “I’m not sure what my summer looks like yet.”

“Well, if you are, we should hang out! I need someone to show me around.” He casts his gaze beyond her shoulder. “And Logan too, of course.” Piz blinks. “If he’s in town.”

Logan lays a warm hand across the back of her neck. “Veronica, I think our stop is coming up.”

“Yeah. Hey, good to see you Piz.”

“You too!” He fumbles his wallet out of his pocket and grabs a slightly dogeared card out of its folds. “Here.” He shoves the card toward her and Veronica takes it, tucking it automatically in her front pocket. “My number.”

Piz looks back toward his bag and jacket, still miraculously where he left them. “Oh shit!” He darts back in the direction of his belongings, tossing a “see you!” back at Veronica as the car jerks to a stop and the doors hiss open.

Veronica and Logan exit the subway and walk the few blocks from the station to the Central Park entrance in relative quiet. Veronica considers, and rejects, the idea of saying something directly about the Piz run-in. _Better to just let it lie._ As they reach the boundary of the park, though, Logan seems to perk up, grabbing Veronica’s hand and giving her fingers a brief squeeze.

They enter the world-within-a-world that is Central Park at one of its busiest areas, near Strawberry Fields and the open air stage where theater productions are put on during the summer. Massive trees line the walkways, blocking out some of the noise and energy of the city. In the early spring sun, the green of the lawns is almost overwhelming.

Midway through the park, the path they’re on melds into the upper level of Bethesda Terrace, a large open plaza divided into two levels. Logan pulls Veronica up short as a trio of young boys goes running by just in front of her, whooping at the top of their lungs. Her eyes follow the boys as they take the large stairs down two at a time to the lower terrace where they race in circles around the large fountain and angel statue that feature in so many New York movies. The crowd around them is a mix of New Yorkers in business attire on their lunch break, small children out with parents and nannies, and tourists, flocking around, taking pictures of each other in front of the famous landmark. Veronica reaches for her phone by reflex, forgetting momentarily that her main texting partner is standing right here next to her. With a small internal smile, she slides her phone back into her pocket, patting it fondly. As they linger, taking in the sights, Logan spots an ice cream vendor cart and nudges Veronica with his elbow. “Buy m’lady a bomb pop?”

“Psh. If you think you’re getting away with just a bomb pop you are sorely mistaken.”

He rolls his eyes and gets them two chocolate dipped cones and a wad of napkins. They meander over to the sandstone balustrade that overlooks the lower terrace and the angel fountain. Veronica happily slurps on the top of her cone. Somewhere below them, out of sight, someone is playing a very passable jazz saxophone, the sound mingling pleasantly with the patter of water in the fountain and the swirl of voices all around. The sun, a delicious contrast to the ice cream, is hitting them just right, making her feel warm all the way through. _Or maybe it’s the company._

Veronica sneaks a glance over at Logan, who is sucking some dripping chocolate off of his wrist. She’s been living in New York for almost a year and a half and she’s never felt as at home, as content, in the city as she does right now with Logan. Law school is a constant draining time suck and, while she’s done all of the requisite city things—the Met, the MoMA, Broadway shows, late nights at bars—she’s never really _felt_ any of it before. Logan heightens everything; sharpens the world. Sharpens her. It’s a feeling she had almost chalked up to fantasy or forgotten in their long years apart, but now here it is again, welcome as always, waking her up and settling her all at the same time.

Logan leans over and whispers in her ear, “Think that guy down there is trying to steal purses?”

Veronica looks carefully down into the plaza at the man Logan has indicated. He’s large and ungainly, dressed in layers despite the sun, and carrying books of postcards attached to a pole which he waves around. He _does_ seem to be eyeing up the women who pass, but… “No, just hustling for sales, I think. They’re pretty aggressive.”

“Thought I was about to be witness to a mugging for a second there.”

“Logan, it’s the middle of the day in one of the most touristy places in the city. New York isn’t Pleasantville, but it isn’t the crime capitol of the world any more either.”

Logan gives his ice cream cone a lick. “There must be a lot of PIs in town.”

Veronica looks at him in startlement and then turns around to lean her hip against the balustrade, her shoulder to Logan. “Yeah, I suppose so.”

He speaks to the back of her neck. “Before…you know, before we got back together, I always figured you were still out there somewhere, living the PI life. Detecting.”

“Nope.” Veronica crumples her napkin in her fist. “I haven’t worked a case since Hearst.”

“You ever think of getting your license out here?”

It’s not an unreasonable question, but Veronica is somehow annoyed that the subject has even come up. Like a shadow on her perfect day.

“No.”

“Oh.” He shrugs a little. “Guess I’ll have to find someone else to bail me out next time I get accused of a major crime.”

Veronica smiles at him cheerily over her shoulder as she starts to walk away, “There’s always my dad!”

Logan widens his eyes. “…of course.”

They finish their cones, throw their trash away and continue through the rest of the park, eventually emerging on 5th Avenue only a block or so away from their destination.

The Frick is an art museum inside the Gilded Age era mansion of industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The gray stone house in the heart of the Upper East Side must once have towered imposingly, but now it looks almost quaint compared to the soaring skyscrapers that have sprung up nearby. The collection inside is world famous for its high-quality collection of old master paintings.

Despite being housed in a sprawling mansion, The Frick has a small intimate feel, with paintings displayed on the walls of rooms rich with period furniture, sculptures, and décor.

They wander through ante-rooms and parlors, taking in Gainsboroughs, Vermeers, and van Dycks. Veronica lingers in a room displaying a collection of Limoges enamels. It is cool and quiet in the museum, a small crowd at mid-day on a work day.

Finally, in the dark oak paneled library, Logan stops in front of a painting and nods. “My Mom’s favorite.”

They both look at it carefully. The portrait depicts a woman—Julia, Lady Peel, according to the placard—dressed in an elaborate white coat lined with swaths of fur. Her hand, reaching across her body to hold the coat closed, is dripping with enormous jewels set into rings and bracelets. On her head, a gigantic black wheel hat crowned with a fountain of bright red feathers dominates the picture and draws the eye. Veronica, though, is carefully studying her face.

“She looks sad.”

Logan nods. “She’d just lost a child—a baby—to pneumonia a few months before this was painted.” He breathes out steadily through his nose. “She had really horrible taste, you know.”

Veronica follows the shift in his thoughts to Lynn Echolls easily. “Yeah, I remember the cupid statue.”

Logan’s lips twitch slightly at the memory of the peeing cherub. “But this one is pretty gorgeous, isn’t it?”

“I think so.”

She leans into his side a little and he reaches down to slide his hand into the back pocket of her jeans. They stand there, staring at the painting for a beat longer and then they move on through the museum.

 

___________________

 

After a pleasant almost two hours spent among the paintings and objets d’art, Logan is slightly dazed to find himself back outside, blinking against the sudden return of the New York hustle and bright light. Pushed by the fast moving 5th Avenue crowd, he and Veronica start automatically walking back in the direction they came from, toward Central Park.

The day is winding down, and with it their time together. Logan fights against the melancholy of that thought. _No need to wish it away before it’s actually gone. Keep it light._

They are momentarily separated by a clump of young suits walking three abreast. Veronica falls behind, glaring at their backs, while Logan winds up a few steps ahead. As she picks up her pace a bit to catch up to him, she asks. “So, want to head back uptown and walk around a bit?”

Logan looks at her over his shoulder, cocks an eyebrow, and, trying to capture a moment of light-heartedness, starts whistling ‘Uptown Girl.’

Veronica rolls her eyes. “Hey, jukebox king, quit it. Plus, if _anyone_ is an uptown girl in this relationship it would have to be…” She trails off, directing her gaze meaningfully at his jeans and thin leather belt, which, while simple, clearly fall into the category of clothes-that-cost-more-than-some-people’s-rent.

He smiles, delighted, “Does that make you my backstreet guy?”

Veronica starts to saunter up the sidewalk past him, lightly singing the “ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah” chorus to Billy Joel’s acapella song.

 _I love her like this. Love her always, but especially like this_.

Logan, grinning, follows behind her, whistling in counterpoint for a few bars. Just as he catches up, Veronica’s cell phone rings loudly. She frowns as she fishes it out of her bag. Looking at the number on the display, an unreadable expression crosses her face and she holds a hand up, gesturing at Logan to wait while she steps a few feet away to answer the call.

As she talks, Logan studies her body language, trying to figure out who is on the other end. _It couldn’t be…she didn’t even give him her number. Did she?_

Finally, after a few minutes, Veronica puts the phone away and turns back to him, a smile splitting her face, “Guess who got a summer internship!”

"That's great!" Unacknowledged relief makes his throat tight and he clears it. “I know you were worried about how late it was.” Veronica had been interviewing for months, but had gotten a late start because of his accident. Even with the crappy job market, all of the other 2Ls at Columbia have already secured their internships, Logan knows. Veronica has been surprisingly reluctant to talk about the whole process with him. “Where are you going to be working?”

“Vargas, Allen and Associates.”

Logan smiles encouragingly, sensing that she has more to say.

She drops her phone into her bag and dusts her hands together, drawing the moment out before looking up at him archly. “It may sound familiar. You may have seen their firm advertised on billboards…around San Diego.”

“San Diego?" It sinks in. "Veronica! Seriously?” His voice catches on the last word in a way that would be embarrassing if he were capable of feeling anything but joy at the moment.

Logan grabs her hand and spins her around in a clumsy twirl. In the middle of a crowded Manhattan sidewalk. The glares this earns him from passersby are both many and easily ignored. God, the prospect of an entire summer together fills him with unalloyed glee. He’s pretty sure he has the world’s most ridiculous grin on his face right now and Veronica looks pretty damn pleased with herself as well. He wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her in for a hug.

“Let’s go back to your place and…celebrate.”

“I’m right behind you.” Veronica gives Logan a little shove forward to get him moving.

“Mm…reverse those positions and we can add it to the celebration.”

As they resume their walk toward the park, Logan starts whistling The Beach Boys’ 'California Girls' under his breath.

“Wow, I really thought you were going to go Katy Perry with that one.”

This time around, Logan is paying no attention whatsoever to the quaint sights of Central Park, his entire mind filled with potential scenes of domestic bliss. He reaches over to rub his fingers against the back of Veronica’s neck near her hairline. He can’t seem to stop touching her on this trip—a habit he knows she’s not always fond of but that she seems to be indulging in more a little herself. Long distance makes them greedy for tactile feedback.

“So, what’s the plan for this summer?” _Live with me._

“I already signed up to keep my apartment in Lenfast next year, so I’ll just sublet it for the summer. That’s pretty easy to do.”

Logan hesitates, but takes the opening to broach a subject that’s been on his mind since his first trip out in March. “You know, for next school year…I’ve been thinking a little about buying an apartment here in New York.” Logan shrugs. “Real estate is a good investment.”

Veronica turns around, walking backwards so that she can look him in the eye, puzzled. “Why would you do that? You’re not going to—” And then the light dawns and her jaw hardens. She stops stock still in the middle of the sidewalk, forcing him to pull up short. “I’m going to stop this conversation right here.” Veronica takes a deep breath in through her nose. “Logan, do you know what is in my bank account right now?”

“…Money?”

“Money that I’ve been saving to pay you back for last summer—the hotel bill, the housing deposit.” Her eyes glint dangerously. “But you’re not ever going to accept that money, are you?”

Logan is shocked and a little angry himself now. “No, Veronica.” _How could you ever think I would?_

“Okay. So please don’t talk about buying an apartment for me again. I’ve taken enough from you.”

He opens his mouth to say ‘ _It’s not you taking; it’s me supporting the woman I love._ ’ But the firm light in her eye tells him that no argument he can come up with will budge her on the New York apartment issue. Logan can feel that sick pit of fear that he gets every time they argue forming in his belly. That undeniable childlike part of him whimpering, _What if she leaves? She has other options. You saw that clearly today._ He pushes the feeling down forcefully, ashamed as always of the weakness. It’s been such a wonderful few days, they’ve been so happy, and he has to leave soon. Now is clearly not the time to pick an unwinnable fight.

Instead, he leans down and presses a firm kiss on her mouth. Veronica softens into him, clutching at his arms as they wrap around her waist. He spends a moment comforting himself with the light scent of her skin; still marshmallows, all these years later. The smell of his ever and constant home.

_I can’t ever let her leave me again._

Her voice is low and urgent when she breaks out of his embrace, tugging at his hand. “Let’s go home, Logan. Now. Fast.”

“Agreed.” 

______________

 

That night, their last, she’s sprawled on top of him—the only sleeping position her miniscule efficiency bed will allow—every muscle limp and completely drained, when Logan reaches a hesitant hand up to sweep some hair away from her face and tuck it behind her ear.

Veronica can tell he wants to say something and she lets out a questioning “Mmm?”

He lays a butterfly-soft kiss on her chin. “Veronica, I wasn’t going to say anything after…but, please don’t call Piz.”

The request is so out of left field that it takes a moment to register, but when it does, Veronica can feel herself stiffening on top of him. “You know, contrary to what some people say, jealousy isn’t actually a desirable trait in a mate.”

“This isn’t jealousy.” Veronica scoffs, but he insists. “It’s not!”

“Okay then. What is it?”

“I just…this long distance thing is hard enough and he clearly still likes you.”

Veronica purses her lips and taps a finger to the resultant pout. “Who wouldn’t like me?”

Logan sighs heavily. “ _Likes you,_ likes you”

“Logan, you’re being ridiculous. Piz and I dated for about a minute years ago.”

“The same could have been said of us.”

Veronica shakes her head sharply. “That’s different. We’re different.”

“Yeah.”

She keeps her voice purposely soft and gentle through her growing frustration. “Do you not trust me? Because, if so, this whole long distance thing is on pretty shaky ground, Piz or no Piz.”

“It’s not that, Veronica.” Logan rolls over, his voice muffled into the pillow. “I don’t…”

“What?”

“You know what, never mind. I’m being stupid, I know. I’m sorry I even said anything.”

She wants to keep drilling him on where exactly this is coming from; it makes her mad when he thinks about her—them—like this. Then he turns his head back and the look in his eyes… _Jesus_. “Logan, I’m not going to call Piz.” Veronica says firmly. “I probably wouldn’t have even before this conversation and I’m definitely not going to now that I know how you feel about it.”

“Veron—“

Veronica puts one hand over his mouth and lays the other against her forehead in a mock swoon, “Oh, whatever will I do when I want to talk for hours about obscure bands?”

Logan softly kisses the palm covering his mouth, his tongue tickling at the webs of her fingers. “You can call me.”

“Roger ball.”

________________

 

<< Think you’ve got room for one more in your condo this summer? >>  
Wed. April 23, 2014, 9:47am EST

<< Oh, I’m sure I can cobble something together. >>  
Wed. April 23, 2014, 7:00 am PDT

<< That closet under the stairs is pretty roomy. >>  
Wed. April 23, 2014, 7:00 am PDT

<< Well, clear out those spiders, Aunt Petunia, and prepare to get so sick of me you won’t be able to stand it. >>  
Wed. April 23, 2014, 10:01 am EST

<< Seriously though Veronica, I’d love that. I was hoping you’d stay here. >>  
Wed. April 23, 2014, 7:02 am PDT

<< I miss you already. >>  
Wed. April 23, 2014, 7:03 am PDT 

<< New York feels empty without you. >>  
Wed. April 23, 2014, 10:05 am EST

<< In further news, I will shoot you dead if you ever show that last text to anyone. >>  
Wed. April 23, 2014, 10:06 am EST

<< Or mention it again. >>  
Wed. April 23, 2014, 10:06 am EST

<< Dating Veronica Mars does frequently mean taking my life into my hands. >>  
Wed. April 23, 2014, 7:07 am PDT

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many, many thanks to **marshmallowtasha** for her able beta skills, and also for letting me borrow a reference to Lynn Echolls' tacky cupid statue from her story [Game On](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2391329). 
> 
> Speaking of Lynn, her favorite painting is a [portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence](http://collections.frick.org/view/objects/asitem/items%240040:110) that does, indeed, hang in The Frick's library. 
> 
> And a tip of the hat to **disdainfullady** for embedding the [_Cats_ /Veronica Mars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UlYQPJ70Jg) connection so deeply into my consciousness that I didn’t even realize where it came from until this chapter was on about its fourth edit.


	5. August, 2014

**August, 2014**

<< Hey, I’m going to swing by the store. Need anything? >> Wed. July 30, 2014, 3:36 pm PDT

<< Ice cream. >> Wed. July 30, 2014, 3:42 pm PDT 

<< Seriously. All the ice cream. >> Wed. July 30, 2014, 3:42 pm PDT 

<< If you don’t get ice cream, don’t bother coming home. >> Wed. July 30, 2014, 3:43 pm PDT

<< Your wish. My command. >> Wed. July 30, 2014, 3:45 pm PDT

___________

 

Logan tosses his keys on the counter and sets the plastic bags of groceries down with a thump.

The condo is dim and quiet and empty, a state of affairs that he finds a bit off-putting. Only a little less than two months of living together and he’s already starting to get cranky when Veronica isn’t home.

 _Home_.

He strips off his shoes, tossing them in the bin in the closet, and then changes into sweatpants and an old t-shirt before returning to the kitchen to put the groceries away. It’s rare for him to be home this early in the evening, but he’d had an early morning training flight that had required him to report to the base at zero dark thirty, so he’d been released after the afternoon All Officers Meeting.

Logan frowns as he shifts a frozen lasagna out of the way to make room for a pint of Moose Tracks. Released early to think about how exactly he’s going to pass on the news he got today. Not surprising news, exactly, but still.

He wedges a package of Klondikes into the door—experience dictates that when Veronica calls an ice cream emergency it’s best to be prepared with many different options—and contemplates the state of his freezer. Previously the home of Hot Pockets and one lemon of uncertain provenance, it is now stuffed with frozen Italian food, ice cream, and a tightly sealed tupperware of sugar cookie dough. He pries off the corner of the container and scrapes off some shavings of frozen dough with his finger, popping them into his mouth with only the smallest twinge of guilt.

Living with Veronica Mars is pretty awesome, it turns out, even though they’re both busy. Her law office internship packs some long hours and his life as a naval aviator will always mean ten to twelve hour days at base or in the air, but…coming home to her every night, crawling into bed together to talk about their days, weekends to stay in on the couch or go out to eat. It all adds up to the best summer he’s ever had.

Logan slams the freezer door shut and heads over to the couch, high stepping over a pair of Veronica’s boots that are sitting neatly on the floor by the coffee table. With a sigh he flops down, shoulders loosening and muscles relaxing.

 _We’ve always been good in the summer_. Logan closes his eyes and crosses his arms behind his head, stretching his body to knead the couch armrest with his socked toes. The pull against the scar on his thigh is a minor, niggling ache.

It’s coming up on a year since his crash and their reunion and this is the longest they’ve ever managed to stay together—a thought that scares him a little with its implications when he lets himself think about it. With the exception of the few weeks after he got out of rehab but before Veronica returned to New York, they’ve never really lived together before. When he looks back on that period, it seems like a little bubble; a time out of the normal world for healing and reconnecting. This, on the other hand, feels real.

It’s amazing that with how well they know each other—how deeply he feels he can see her sometimes after all of these years—there are still so many things about her to discover. 

In the past weeks, he’s learned that Veronica has a tendency to leave her boots in a jumble on the floor wherever she kicks them off. She hogs the covers—that wasn’t a surprise—hums when she vacuums, and is very particular about where things are stored in the kitchen. Who knew that the love of his life would be so offended by the idea of peanut butter being kept in the refrigerator, for god’s sake?

He loves every little bit of it. Everything feels so much more settled with her here, where he can see her, touch base with her. That fear that she’s a falcon, straining at the leash, waiting to take flight away from him, occurs a bit less often.

The sound of the key in the lock draws Logan’s attention and he turns his head lazily to watch as Veronica comes through the door. She looks worn down, tired and slightly pale in a way that suggests a stress headache. She drops her shoulder bag and immediately bends down to unzip and kick off her boots (and leaves them on the floor by the door. _Wouldn’t want to mess with established routine._ )

Veronica spots him on the couch and turns toward him, mustering up a smile although exhaustion is apparent in every line of her body. “Honey! I’m home!”

She plods across the room and flops down on top of Logan with a groan, covering him like a miniature blonde blanket. “God, work today…ugh.” She buries her face in his chest and tucks her feet in between his calves.

Logan loops his arms around her waist, inhaling deeply. “Mmmm, hey.”

Still facedown in his chest, she mumbles into his t-shirt. “Remind me why I thought law school was a good idea?”

“Because you’re brilliant and everyone should see it.” He responds without hesitation, breathing her in.  

She turns her head to the side and cranes it upward to examine him, eyes narrowing suspiciously. “Are you like…a pull string boyfriend doll? Programmed with the perfect responses for every insecure bitch I have?”

Logan lets his eyes glaze over and his voice go robotic. “You look beautiful in that dress. Never have I seen you look skinnier.”

She lowers her face back into his chest and bites him, not exactly gently.

“Ow!” He tightens his hands around her waist but doesn’t retaliate. “Seriously, Veronica. You went to law school because you wanted to. And you’ll be an excellent lawyer if you want to.” He reaches up to run a hand through her hair, cupping the back of her head and rubbing her scalp lightly with his thumbs. “What was wrong at work today?”

“Ugh. It’s this whole land use zoning ordinance thing. I don’t even want to think about it any more.”

“Is that like the Land Use lecture you took last semester? The one with the girl you hated?”

“Uh huh.”

“How come you’re taking all of these corporate law classes, anyway? It doesn’t seem like…”

Veronica props her chin on his chest, where it digs bonily into his sternum. “Doesn’t seem like what?” Her tone is challenging, “Doesn’t seem like me?”

He corrects gently. “It doesn’t seem like you enjoy them.”

“Well, I don’t always. But, I don’t know, they’re more…practical.”

“Practical?”

Veronica breathes in deeply but doesn’t take up the conversational gambit. Logan waits a bit, but nothing more is forthcoming. _Okay then._ “It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, you know, Veronica. You can go to law school and still do other things you enjoy. Other things you’re good at.”

He rubs lightly at the spot where spine meets skull with his thumb and she rumbles a low sound into his chest. “Is that a proposition, mister? Because I’m pretty sure you were already getting lucky tonight.”  

Still ducking and dodging. Always, this woman he loves, the other half of him, simultaneously the world’s greatest mystery and clear as glass to him. She tilts her face up to look at him and he kisses the tip of her nose. “You’re Veronica Mars. You’ll figure it out.”

Veronica puts her head back down and relaxes onto him for a long minute as he continues to knead her scalp, scratching lightly at her hairline. Finally, with a sharp indrawn breath, she levers herself up off of him. “I’m going to take a quick shower, I think, before dinner.” She heads toward the kitchen. “You want a glass of wine?”

“Yeah, sure.” Logan follows her, leaning on the counter as Veronica rummages for glasses. He steals a grape from the cluster sitting in a bowl and pops it into his mouth, studying Veronica out of the corner of his eye. _Now is the time._

Veronica holds out two bottles of wine, eyebrows raised in question, and Logan nods at the Pinot Noir. _Stop stalling._ He looks her in the eye as he starts. Like an adult. “So…you remember we talked about you maybe coming down to base to check out the jets sometime?”

Logan watches her stiffen, just the smallest hitch in her motions, but he understands. He thinks that particular fight is burned into both of their memories and probably always will be.

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Well, actually, I might be able to do you one better. The boat is having a Friends and Family Day. It’s one full day onboard the aircraft carrier; we’ll go out to sea, you can tour the boat. There’s, um, there’s an airshow kind of thing…I’m pretty sure I’ll be flying. You could…”

She puts the wine bottle down on the counter and responds quickly. “Yes. Definitely.” The corners of her mouth are pulled up into a smile, and there is nothing that makes his heart twist like a Veronica who is genuinely trying. “Sounds perfect, Logan.”

“Great!” His attempt to work up some enthusiasm fizzles in the face of what he knows they have to talk about next. Veronica picks the bottle back up and pours them both glasses of wine, pushing one toward him.

“When is it?”

There’s an odd, sick knot in the pit of his stomach and he feels flushed. All of the times Logan that has envied the other pilots their loved ones—their family to come home to, the emails in their inboxes—he’s never really thought about this. The other side of the equation. The side where he has to tell someone he loves that he’s going away. She’s not going to be happy. _Of course she’s not. Would you want her to?_

He twirls the stem of the wine glass around and around between his fingers. “It’s towards the end of the month…right after we get back from a two week underway.”

Veronica chokes a bit on the sip she’s taken and sets her glass down. “What?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of late notice, but we ship out in a week and a half. We’ve got to fly carrier qualifications and the boat is going to pick up ordnance and a few other things.”

“And you’re…going with the carrier?”

“Well, yeah.” He’s already mentally defending himself against arguments she hasn’t even made yet— _don’t be mad, don’t leave me_ —so it’s kind of devastating when her face falls instead.

“I was kind of enjoying being on the same side of the continent.” She shrugs in an attempt at nonchalance. “Well hey, easy come, easy go.” She grabs the bottle of wine to put it back and turns away from him, saying over her shoulder, “Just two weeks, right?”

“Yeah, fifteen days.” _I’m sorry_. The words are right there, poised on his lips, but he doesn’t say them, because he’s got no right. It’s his job and he’s made the choice.

She turns back and there is a bright smile on her face. “Right. Well I’m going to shower and then…whose turn is it to make dinner?”

“I made it last night.”

“You always say that.”

_______________

 

It’s early in the morning, nearly two weeks later, when Logan rolls out of bed and begins to get ready to report to the carrier. Veronica wants to flop back down and pull the covers over her head. _If I don’t see it, it’s not happening._  But instead she gets out of bed herself, snagging her pajama bottoms from the floor and taking an early morning swing through the condo.

She carefully shuts the hall closet door—ajar two inches—and inches the thermostat down, then back up juuust a little.

In the kitchen, Veronica eyes a box of cereal sitting out on the counter-top before putting it away. Living with Logan has been easier than she might have expected given the fact that he spent his formative years in a hotel, but he does have his quirks. He tends to leave stuff out after he's used it—clearly not caring if it has to wait to get put away until the weekly maid service—and he loads the dishwasher like a moron.  

Balancing that out, though, are all of the ways he’s shaped his life—his world—to give her a prominent place. Little things, like the way the toaster is always quietly and without comment reset to her toast preferences (light perfection) rather than his (death star annihilation) in the morning. Or how he never stops at a gas station or convenience store without snagging her a packet of the cheese crackers she likes to keep in her desk for long afternoons when she can’t get away for lunch.

And she's his girlfriend now, everywhere. His hand on the small of her back and “have you met Veronica, my girlfriend?” to the girl at the Whole Foods down the block. His chin propped on her head, arms around her waist when they stop to talk to the oh-so-friendly blonde jogger with a poodle in his condo complex.

When she had met his friends from his squad for the first time at a casual lunch a few weeks ago, they were all somewhat off-puttingly familiar with the details of her life. Vic asked her how her Torts final went and John’s fiancée asked for her snickerdoodle recipe. 

Kitchen clutter now mostly sorted, Veronica eyes the dishes from last night’s dinner in the sink, but puts them off with a mental shrug. _Plenty of time for that later._ She wanders back into the bedroom as the shower shuts off. Logan’s getting ready sounds—towels thumping wetly to the floor, the sink running, the soft aerosol hiss of his shaving cream—are small comfort in the face of what is soon going to be an echoingly empty condo.

_One that’s not even mine._

The suit bag containing Logan’s uniforms is laid out on the bed, several uniform hats tossed next to it. She picks up the formal white dress hat with the black brim and gold insignia, turning it absently around and around in her hands as she sits on the bed.

Finally, Logan comes out of the bathroom, wiping the last of the shaving cream off of his jaw with a towel, wearing just the trousers of his summer whites.

He walks over towards her and snags his uniform blouse off the bed, buttoning it up carefully and tucking it in with swift, competent movements, fastening the ridiculous white belt and checking the alignment of his shirt buttons.

Giving her a small smile, he moves over to the nightstand on his side of the bed, collecting his wallet and keys, but sweeping his cell phone into the drawer. Off of her questioning look, he explains, “No point. There aren’t any cell phone towers at sea.”

_Oh._

Smiling gamely back, Veronica holds the white cap up to him as he moves back toward her. “You know, it never occurred to me before, but you finally got your white hat, didn’t you?”

He looks at her quizzically for a moment, and then breaks out into a soft smile. “I guess the day must come for every villain.”

“And you haven’t tied anyone to the railroad tracks for _months_.”

He steps forward, pulls her to her feet, and loops his arms around her waist. “Veronica, I’m not going to say good bye, okay, because we don’t do that. It’s kind of a thing.” He keeps it casual and matter of fact. “I’ll email you whenever I get a chance. Try not to eat all of the ice cream while I’m gone, but even if you do, I’ll still love you.”

She scoffs, “If.”

He drops his forehead down to hers, closing his eyes and inhaling. “Just, um, promise me you’ll still be here when I get back.”

Veronica’s heart clenches. _Damn it, Logan._ She stands up on her tiptoes and kisses him on the mouth. “Have a good trip. I’ll see you in two weeks.”

“You sure will.” His face widens in an expression of glee. “On the carrier!”

“Yes, on the carrier.”

__________

 

The week passes slowly, with little to distract Veronica besides work and daily emails from Logan.

With him gone, it’s a bit too easy to focus on how restless she is with the legal work. The endless hours of document review do play into one of her particular strengths— back in her PI days, she’d honed a talent for sifting through reams of data searching for useful nuggets—but it feels so meaningless in this context. All of the concentration and headache, none of the reward.

Three days before the Family Day Cruise, Veronica meets her father for lunch. They get together at least one evening a week for dinner, but today he’s in San Diego for something case-related about which he’s being frustratingly evasive. So, in lieu of wielding her highlighter over a pile of client emails from 2007, she sneaks out of the office to meet him.

Her father is waiting for her at a small food truck plaza a block away from Veronica’s office and they quickly claim a picnic table, catching up over massive burritos. Keith directs the conversation with eager ‘tell me about your internship’ questions and dutiful ‘I hope Logan is doing well’ sentiments, but dodges all of Veronica’s attempts at finding out anything about the case he’s working. It’s funny, she reflects as she licks red sauce off of the side of her hand, when she’s in New York and they’re talking over the phone he’s perfectly happy to chat about his case du jour, but this summer, with her home, it’s been like trying to pry pearls out of an oyster.

Twenty minutes later, it’s almost time for Veronica to leave when Keith gets a call. He rifles through his briefcase, grabs a legal pad and holds an index finger up at Veronica in the universal wait-just-a-minute sign before stepping away, leaving his briefcase tantalizingly open, files in easy view.

_Did this man not raise me?_

Veronica resists for about a minute, drumming her fingers on the tabletop— _why do you even care about this? It isn’t you anymore, remember?—_ and then snags the upper-most file folder and flips through it.

The pictures inside make her blink in surprise and she makes no effort to hide the file as Keith comes back to the table.

“Dad… this is Daniel Allen. He’s one of the partners at my firm!”

Keith snatches the file back from her. “Veronica! You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“Why are you after him?”

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

She fixes him with a skeptical look. “Dad, seriously?”

“Yes, Veronica. Seriously. You don’t work for Mars Investigations and this is confidential.”

“Well you saw where _he_ worked. Weren’t you going to ask for my help?”

“I have been a PI for a long time now, Veronica. I know what I’m doing. Your help isn’t necessary.”

Veronica leans forward in her seat. “I know every minute of this guy’s schedule – he seems to think the interns are some sort of secretarial pool.” She grimaces. “Me especially. I could save you a lot of tracking time.”

Keith sweeps the folder into his briefcase. “Well thanks, but I’m good. You just focus on your internship.”

Veronica sits back, biting her lip, before tossing out a question that has been on her mind more and more often of late. “Dad, do you…want some help at the office the rest of this week?” Keith’s eyebrows fly up and she hurriedly continues. “I’m just kind of rattling around in the condo with Logan gone and the last time I picked you up for lunch it looked like the files were stacking up pretty good. I could come down in the evenings and do some sorting and filing for you.” She gives him her best winsome grin. “You know, for old times’ sake.”

“Veronica, I’m fine.” His voice is firm and final in a way that gets Veronica’s back up for some reason.

“Really? Because the leaning tower of file-sa I saw on your desk suggests otherwise.”

“I’ve managed the office on my own for years now and—“

“But you don’t _have_ to. I’m here or you could get some—“

“But you won’t _be_ here! In a month you’ll be back in New York and that is good. Great, even. I don’t want you anywhere near the business, Veronica!” Keith slaps the table in an uncharacteristic expression of emotion and she rears back in her seat in surprise. “It almost dragged you down once. You almost lost yourself. Just…no. No, Veronica. I figured out how to do it on my own. It’s better that way.”

Wordlessly, Veronica pushes back from the table and gathers her belongings, making it about two feet away before she turns back angrily.

“You know what, Dad? I’m sorry I screwed up so badly eight years ago. I am really, truly sorry. I know that you trusted me and I ruined the election and then I left and—”

“Veronica, that’s not what—”

But she’s not willing to be stopped. The frustration pouring out of her has been building up over the weeks since Logan has been gone, over the month of knowing he’d be gone, hell, over the years of tiptoeing around this very issue with her father.

“No, Dad.” Her voice is steady, but sharp enough that Keith snaps his mouth shut. Veronica advances a step toward him. “You and Logan are the two people who know me best in the whole world, but sometimes I think you both have seriously screwed up visions of me. I’m not nineteen. I’m not going to leave Logan, and I can handle sorting some damn files without…falling off the wagon.” She chokes out the last. “I’m not Mom.”

“Veronica, I know that. I’ve never thought—”

“No! That took me forever to figure out, but dammit I’m working on it now and your silent disapproval of my life choices doesn’t help. Do you even want me here?”

“Veronica, I only want you to be happy. That’s it. And Logan…”

She juts her jaw out pugnaciously. “What about Logan?”

Keith’s face visibly tightens, but he pulls himself together in that rapid way she inherited and puts his Dad-mask back on. “You think that Logan thinks you’re going to leave? Have you two talked about this?”

 _Not really._ “Yes. We talk. We’re in an adult relationship and we work through things together.”

As far as flounce lines go, it’s not her best effort. Nothing can make you feel small like lying to your father to win an argument. _What do you even want from him, Veronica? What are you trying to accomplish here?_ With a sigh, Veronica turns away again.

“Goodbye Dad. I’ll call you later.”

__________

 

That Saturday finds Veronica at the port of Long Beach, just one in a swirling crowd of friends, family and loved ones there to spend a day on the aircraft carrier. The day is hot and she’s dressed in shorts, sneakers, and a pair of layered tank tops. She’s baggage-less, but almost every other person around her has a video camera, or a backpack, or camera bag. Veronica is reminded suddenly of the last time she went to Disneyland, hemmed in on all sides by humanity and their giant fanny packs.

Up close, the ship is… _immense_. There is no other word for it. Of course, she wasn’t under the impression that an aircraft carrier manned by over five thousand men was going to be small, but the abstract understanding of size she’d gained from Logan’s casual talk about “the boat” pales in comparison to the massive bulk looming over her now. Around her, other family members are craning their necks as they, too, take in the size of the ship, mouthing silent _daaamn_ s as they loft their cell phones upward in the universal human urge to try to document that which the eye can barely comprehend.

Veronica makes her way to the back of the line, momentarily awed into a sense of her own smallness, and aching for her own camera for the first time in a long time. Anything to put some distance between herself and all of this.

In front of her in line, a grizzled father who has the indefinable air of a military veteran plants his hands on his hips, juts his chin at the ship and barks, “Chet said she’s almost a quarter mile long, but she doesn’t look that much bigger than the _Constellation._ ”

Veronica’s mouth twitches and she resists the urge to lean forward. _You can be blasé about some things, Rose, but you can’t be blasé about Titanic._

Instead, Veronica snaps a quick selfie of herself looking up at the ship with an expression of subdued awe and sends it off in a group text to Mac and Wallace with accompanying caption: “I’m just one giant picture hat away from meeting Leonardo DiCaprio.”

The line is slow enough that she’s only a few feet further along when their replies buzz in; Wallace’s _“Huh?”_ followed by Mac’s _“Never let go!”_

The line is long and the security check thorough. Veronica finally makes it on board just minutes before the carrier gets underway, following the general trail of humanity through several corridors and up into the gigantic open space of the hangar bay at the center of the ship. The massive room is at least two football fields long – crammed to the gills with people and aircraft. An enormous breakfast buffet is laid out across one end of the room and the air is redolent with the conflicting odors of eggs, paint, metal, and diesel. Booths and events and games are set up at various places. Young kids are getting stick-on tattoos and the PA system is somewhat incongruously playing the Cupid Shuffle (‘… _down, down do your dance…’_ ). About twenty feet away from where Veronica is standing—gaping slightly at the scene in spite of herself—a few laughing young women are being helped into heavy firefighter gear by several sailors.

Across the hangar, people are taking their picture with a large, lumpy looking plane of some sort—it doesn’t look like a jet, but what does she know—and a massive helicopter.

In Logan’s last email he had told her that he had some duties to oversee in the morning but that he would “find her” when he was done. Looking around now, she’s not sure how that is possible.

Cameras are flashing all around; people are hugging and smiling. A giant American flag, easily forty feet long, streams down from the ceiling, flapping wildly back and forth every time the elevators let in another gush of fresh air. A laughing young woman in service khakis smacks into Veronica from behind, apologizes hurriedly, and then chases after a small boy of about eight. (‘ _Now walk it by yourself…’_ )

It’s all so very _happy_ and _patriotic_ and Veronica can feel her inner misanthrope rising up in self-protection. She likes people—honest, she does—but large, enthusiastic crowds are so overwhelming and isolating. They just make her want to find a corner to herself to hide and snark on everything from a safe distance.

_Come on Mars, get with the program._

More out of a need to actually _do_ something other than stand around awkwardly than from any real desire to see the rest of this behemoth, Veronica follows a set of laminated arrows (‘… _to the left, to the left, to the left, to the left…’)_ and joins a small clutch of a dozen other tourists on the self-guided “medical tour.”

The arrows lead them down dim gray corridors past open doors, the music rapidly fading into the distance. Veronica peers inside one room, a twelve-by-six foot cubicle with what looks like a dentist’s chair sitting in the center. A cheerily laminated sign taped to the door proclaims it the “Operating Room” and informs her that, “Numerous procedures have been preformed while the ship is underway, including laparoscopic hernia repair, a subcutaneous mastectomy, and an emergency appendectomy.”

She stops reading the signs.

At the end of the corridor is the brig—the ship’s prison. Inside is a Chief Petty Officer who is animatedly explaining her duties and how the punishment system on the ship works. Veronica stands at the edge of the small crowd that has gathered, listening with a combination of unease and amusement, when some ineffable shift in the air makes her look to the left.

“Hey.”

There he is; lopsided grin on his face, dressed in his flight suit, and leaning against the frame of the corridor entrance four feet away. A rush of emotion—what, she doesn’t care to define—floods her. Veronica carefully controls her hands and her body, which suddenly seem urgent for a lot more PDA than is probably appropriate at Logan’s place of employment.

_It’s only been two weeks. Get a grip._

He raises an eyebrow. “I should have known I’d find you at the brig.”

“It’s a frame up, I swear, Lieutenant.”

Logan’s hand reaches out and locks around her wrist, thumb brushing caressingly across her pulse point. “Can I steal you away from the tour?”

“Oh please.”

Without releasing her wrist, Logan snaps off a quick wave to the Chief Petty Officer, and tugs Veronica down a passageway, making two turns in quick succession before steering them into a small alcove and ducking under some industrial piping. He has her pressed flat against the metal bulkhead before she can say a word. His lips pressed against hers as he breathes into a kiss, “Hi.”

Veronica kisses him back hungrily, twining her arms around his neck. “I missed you.”

Logan spins them around against the wall and peppers her face with kisses. “Ooh, this feels so _wrong_.” He pulls back, and then lunges in again to kiss her one more time. “I like it.”

Veronica injects her voice with surprise. “Why, is this _against the rules_? I’m surprised at you, sailor.”

He separates from her slightly at that and makes a small ‘brush it off’ motion with his fingers. “Hey, listen. I have about forty-five minutes before I have to be in the ready room. Can I show you around?”

“If anyone could it would be you.”

He leads her down a dizzying number of hallways. Veronica, who prides herself on her sense of direction, is almost instantly lost, all of her concentration focused on high-stepping over “knee knocker” doorframes cut into the bulkhead. Then come several sets of stairs, each narrower and steeper than the last—Logan behind her making leering comments and taking advantage of the opportunity to cop a feel.

Finally, after another confusing series of turns, Logan skids to a halt in front of a door that looks like every other door they have passed in the last five minutes.

“This is my stateroom…um…the other guys were supposed to clear out. Lemme just…” He opens the door and pops his head through. “Okay. All clear.”

He tugs her in to the room, kicking the door shut with his foot. He’s grinning at her in that wide-open eager way she loves so much and sees so infrequently. The way thirteen-year-old Logan did when he mastered some cool new surfing trick.

_God, he really loves this._

__________

 

Logan could not possibly feel more like a kid on Christmas morning than he does right now. Subtract fifteen years and the Navy discipline and he’d be skipping around in circles chanting, “Veronica is here! Veronica is here!”

The tension of the two weeks apart, plus having Veronica on the boat, on his turf, as his own special person to show around and—okay, he’ll admit it—show off for, well Logan is pretty much a giant walking grin. The Cheshire cat in a flight suit.

Veronica stands in the middle of his stateroom, turning a slow circle, taking it all in. He sees it all anew through her eyes. Eight bunks attached to the walls of the room. Eight metal wall units containing closets, drawers and a fold-out desk each. Two sinks. The slight wrinkle of her nose reawakens him to the fact that the room smells ever so slightly like a gym locker—sweat and male and metal.

He waves a hand around and grins gamely at her. “Home sweet home.”

“It’s not… _too_ bad. Only eight of you guys in here?”

Her face is scrunched up adorably. _Must...not...sex...now._ Fraternization on the boat is strictly forbidden. They got a special lecture on it in anticipation of the Friends and Family Day. Anyway, he kind of just wants to soak in her presence here, of all places.

“Yeah, well, we’re officers. You should see the enlisted quarters.”

She turns toward the two walls with the bunks. “Which one is yours?”

“For this cruise?” He points at the upper bunk of one of the pairs. “That one.” He leers at her comically. “Want to see where I lie awake each night and dream of you?”

“Um.”

“No really, c’mere.” He grasps her around the waist before she has time to think about it too much and hoists her up. She automatically scrambles into the bunk and Logan’s pulse rate picks up noticeably at the absolutely fabulous rear view he’s getting. She scoots all the way to the back of the bunk and he launches himself up to join her with a practiced step, thrust, twist.

“Damn. I thought this was small with just me.” Logan wriggles around a bit, grabbing the thin blue privacy curtain and sliding it around, encasing them in a cocoon of dim indigo light.

“My bed in New York doesn’t seem so bad now, huh?” Veronica kind of flops her body up and onto him and he gets his arms around her, one pincered against the bulkhead, the other cushioning her back from the overhead pipes. 

She smells amazing.

“Oh, I don’t know.” He squeezes her tighter. “I’m not exactly complaining.” Veronica takes a long, deep breath against his side. She’s quiet. No quips. Logan can feel his heart rate slow and his breaths calm down in tandem with hers. Pretty much more than anything he’s just missed having her within touching distance. It seemed especially cruel that he had this underway during the summer—stealing away precious time he could have spent sleeping next to her before she goes back to New York. “God, I missed you.”

“Me too.”

Something is up with Veronica; her mood seems slightly off. He can’t just ask her if anything is wrong though, she’ll clam up, so he decides to try coming at it obliquely. “How has work been? You didn’t really mention in any of your emails.”

She turns her head slowly and drops a light kiss on the hollow of his throat, right over his tracheotomy scar. Logan swallows hard. It’s an uncharacteristically tender gesture for Veronica.

“Not now Logan, okay?”

“Sure.” He knows that tone; she isn’t going to give anything up. This isn’t the time or the place, anyway. Scooby and Biff only promised to clear out for a little while.

He gives her one more squeeze and then kicks the curtain away with one leg. “We should really get going. A few of the guys will be back here soon and I want to show you the flight deck.” He tumbles backward, using the weight of his body to propel himself out of the bunk and to the ground in a controlled slide.

From the back of the bunk comes her wry voice. “Stop showing off.”

“Oh, I am no where near done showing off.”

__________

 

They access the flight deck via a ladder leading to a hatch. Veronica’s legs are starting to ache. _This is ridiculous_. “You know,” she huffs, “I thought all of those fancy new muscles you’ve got came from, like, push ups and weightlifting. Now I realize it’s just from getting around the damn ship.”

Logan winces theatrically as he pulls her up into the sunlight. “Boat, dear. The boat. We’ve discussed this.”

“Well, I’m glad I didn’t wear those stilettos.”

Logan stops short. “Wait, I’m not. There were potential stilettos?” His voice rises hopefully.

“Later.”

Up on the deck, the sunshine and brisk breeze provide a welcome respite from the stuffiness of the ship corridors. Hundreds of other visitors and crew are milling around. The giant slab elevators – basically a section of the flight deck that drops down to the hangar and comes back up – are depositing dozens more all the time.

Veronica trots in Logan’s wake as he makes his way purposefully across the deck, hopping giant hoses and chains and stepping around various meaningful-looking metal grooves and divots. She can’t help but feel his excitement as he gazelles his way around the boat and it starts to infect her a little. _This is…kind of cool._ It’s easier to feel happy about everything with him right there in front of her, looking so buoyant and at ease. A few steps ahead, Logan dodges around a clump of sailors. He seems to have a specific destination in mind.

“Logan, what…?”

Then a cluster of people in front of them clear momentarily and there _they_ are.

Big and menacing, like slumbering pterodactyls, the jets are parked around the edges of the flight deck. They walk towards a huge, dull gray monster and Logan jogs over to talk to a brown-shirted guy of about nineteen who seems to be serving the dual purpose of talking about the jet with interested visitors and keeping them from getting too close. He salutes Logan— _holy shit, he’s saluting Logan_ —and they exchange friendly nods of greeting. They talk for a moment and then Logan turns around and jerks his head at Veronica in clear invitation. She walks uneasily forward through the small crowd and across the invisible line drawn around the plane.

Joining Logan near the front of the jet, she shifts slightly from foot to foot while he reaches out and runs his hands over the nose lovingly. “This is the one I’ll take out today.”

Veronica scrunches her face up. “I thought they’d be…shinier.”

“I think the Navy is shooting more for stealth than for sparkles.”

“Shame. What a lost opportunity for bedazzling.” She shakes her head ruefully. “Billions of taxpayer dollars spent and nary a rhinestone in sight.”

Logan snorts and gives her an amused smirk. “All right Martha Stewart, I can see you’re going to be hard to impress. Come here.” He leads her around the side of the plane to where a skinny ladder on wheels is tucked in behind the wing. He gestures for her to climb up, and she does, her head coming level with the pilot’s seat in the cockpit. Logan climbs behind her, stopping a step or two lower and leaning forward so that his body traps hers against the ladder, his chin over her left shoulder, arms circling over her to point out the features of the interior of the Super Hornet.

As she takes in the cockpit, Veronica’s mouth drops. At first glance it seems like every surface is covered in something scary and technical. One, two, three, four…five? Five screens. Gauges everywhere. Knobs and buttons and levers—dozens of them—all up and down the area where armrests would be in a normal seat and up onto the inside of the jet. Everything is covered in old fashioned red switches and black and white dials with tiny incomprehensible labels. With all of this juxtaposed next to the more high-tech looking screens, it’s like the Cold War era only grudgingly mated with the future in some sort of weird steampunk-esque combination of past and present.

She swallows hard. “Logan Echolls.”

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“Are you seriously trying to tell me that you know what every single one of these buttons and switches do?”

“Well…I’ve always been a little confused about that one.” He points over her shoulder at the big joystick-like thing in the center that she’s pretty sure steers the whole shebang. _He’s joking, right?_ Doesn’t he always talk about “the stick?” She’s pretty sure he’s joking. She’s not a fan.

Logan seems to sense the slight edge of rising panic in her thoughts, because he drops an arm across her front, warm and heavy like a seatbelt. It helps. She recovers slightly.

“Okay then, smarty pants. What’s that one?” She jabs her finger through the glass in the direction of a random knob.

He peers across her pointing finger. “The round black one?”

“Mmhm. Third from the bottom.”

“That releases the fuel probe. For aerial refueling.”

“The big switch on the left?”

“Emergency jettison for the drop tanks.”

“The little black button on the top of the stick?”

“Weapon release.” His voice is low and warm in her ear.

“What about…” Her throat is dry and he is still so maddeningly calm. Veronica turns her head toward the back, “That’s where John sits?”

“Yeah, that’s the window-licker spot.” She elbows him in the stomach. “Oof! Aaand moving on. Those lines hanging over my seat—“

“The ejection seat.” _What was it like? Do you remember it? Tell me it won’t ever happen again._

“Yeah. The ejection seat. Um, those lines hook into my rig.” He points. “That’s the oxygen line, the comm hook up, so that we can talk into the mask.”

“Can you even get into all of this yourself?”

“Oh no. Well, yeah. I mean I _could_ , but one of the ground crew is usually around to help. It’s easier that way.”

“Yeah.” She murmurs. “Easier.”

They stand there in silence for a small moment longer, Veronica lost in her thoughts, the ladder rung pressing into the arches of her feet, Logan behind her, resting against her quietly as their breath fogs up the cockpit cover.

“Veronica,” he says finally, kissing the top of her ear and recalling her to the present, “I’ve got to get back down to the Ready Room now. Pre-flight starts soon and I want to make sure you get handed off to Vic okay.”

“Gee. How flattering.”

They start to climb down the ladder and head back across the flight deck – her gingerly, him comfortably. The swagger is back. He’s excited again.

As they pass, he waves a hand toward the metal bleachers that have been set up on the flight deck. They’re already starting to fill with visitors trying to stake an early claim on the good spots. “No way is _my_ girlfriend sitting with the plebes. You’re going to watch with Vic from the LSO platform.” He turns around, walking backwards in front of her and practically bouncing on his heels. “It’s the best view. You’ll get to see all the take-offs and landings up close.” He sketches an arc in the air with his hand. “It’s amazing – you’ll love it.”

He whips back around and faces front just in time to duck under the over-hanging wing of a nearby jet.

_Of course I will._

__________

 

The Ready Room where the pilots from Logan’s squadron congregate and receive briefings—sort of a cross between an office and a clubhouse—is big, for the ship, and colorful. Veronica looks around the room swiftly, taking in a large banner with Logan’s squad’s insignia on it and the big battered leather chairs arranged in rows and bolted to the ground, facing the white board and LCD projector at the front.

A large, old fashioned stereo sits on a small table in the back of the room and near it a cluster of pilots in olive-drab flight suits are circled tensely around each other in an attitude that suggests a fight is about to break out.

Logan raises his eyebrows and addresses the room at large in that lightly mocking oh-so-helpful tone she used to hate in high school. “Hey, guys. You remember my girlfriend, Veronica? One of the _many_ visitors we have on board today.”

At his words, the circle breaks up, most of the combatants and onlookers retreating to different chairs around the room. Three of the nearby men who had been observing the fracas stroll toward Logan and Veronica. Vic and Ghost—Veronica has met both a few times for dinner or at bars—and John Kraft, Logan’s most frequent WSO, who rejoices in the call sign “Cheese.” Veronica just calls him John.

Vic and Ghost chorus a greeting and Veronica smiles in return, but John leans forward to give her a quick hug. “Hey Veronica, nice to see you again.”

“Hi, John.”

Veronica genuinely likes most of the guys from Logan’s squad who she has been introduced to. She’ll never forget that, aside from her and Dick, they were his only visitors and correspondents while he was in the hospital. John, especially, she spent weeks emailing updates on Logan’s condition to. He and Logan don’t hang out much socially, but she knows that he views Logan as a younger brother and she loves him for it.

_If this was the Navy. Just this. Just other people who love and respect Logan, everything would be wonderful._

Outside of their little circle, the room is still tense, two of the aviators who Veronica doesn’t know are whispering together angrily. A big swarthy guy sprawled in a chair near the banner – _Saint?_ – is smirking at them. Veronica can almost put together what must be happening. She shouldn’t…she really shouldn’t.

“What’s going on?” _Oops._

Ghost rolls his eyes. “Someone’s been teasing Einstein – our newest NFO.” He turns his head toward Logan. “You know that picture of his dog he carries everywhere?”

The corners of Logan’s lips twitch. “Yep. Good luck Bo.”

“It’s missing. Some of the guys were trying to blame the Ravens—“ he clarifies for Veronica, “—that’s the Hawkeye squad in the Ready Room next door. But he’s sure it was one of us.”

Logan sighs. “Dumb shits. Look, Einstein’s flying with Scooby in the second jet today, right? And his parents are here? This is no fucking time for pranks.”

Vic nods, Ghost shrugs in agreement, and John says, “You’re right,” but none of them seem to have any particular plan.

 _What men of action the Navy has_. Veronica gives a small snort and, on the sound, Logan cuts his gaze speculatively sideways at her. She can read the question in his eyes. She makes a ‘who me?’ face, but automatically scans the room, taking in… _clues._

_No, not clues, just data. Lawyerly data._

The shorter of the two angry men is flush-faced and gesticulating. _Einstein, presumably_. And…yep. Big dark Saint is still finding all of this a little too amusing. Veronica eyes the set of his shoulders, his index finger very lightly brushing over the zipper on one of the pockets on the leg of his flight suit.

Logan quirks one eyebrow at her in a mute question. Vic, Ghost and John look completely baffled at their silent interplay.

Veronica sighs, leaning toward Logan to say _sotto voce_ , “The big guy by the banner.”

“Saint.” Logan confirms and Veronica nods.

“Right. He’s got it. Probably on him.”

Logan grins at her. “That’s my girl.”

Ghost, leaning in to catch the quiet conversation, looks back and forth between Logan and Veronica wide-eyed.

Logan turns to him. “Well, you heard her. Cheese and I have to be here for briefing, but you don’t and you fly with Einstein a lot. You want to take care of it?”

“Well yeah, okay, but, how does she…”

Logan makes a cutting off gesture with his hand. “She’s right.”

Ghost still looks skeptical, but he nods.  

Vic looks back and forth between Logan—still beaming—and Veronica. “Well, um…we should get going, I guess, Veronica. Mouth here has got to get briefed and we need to get you suited up.”

Logan squeezes her upper arm and Veronica smiles up at him, “I’ll see you after?”

“Yeah, I’ll find you on the flight deck.”

“Okay. See you later, John. Um…fly straight?” Veronica winks and makes finger guns at the two men with both of her hands, inwardly wincing at her own awkwardness. _Smooth Mars. So smooth._

As she and Vic turn to walk away, Vic gets hailed by another pilot and stops to talk to him. Pausing near the door of the Ready Room, Veronica just catches the edge of Ghost’s teasing words to Logan.

“What the hell was that, man? Is your girlfriend a spook?”

Logan laughs. “You have no idea.”

“Ooookay then. So she's still calling Cheese 'John,' huh?” There is a brief scuffling noise. “I like that, Mouth. I bet she calls you Looogan.”

“You’re fucking right she does.”

 

_________

 

The air show is a revelation.

Logan’s Super Hornet, with John as the WSO, is one of several different kinds of aircraft, Hornets, Hawkeyes, Growlers, and Seahawk helicopters— representatives of all of the squadrons on board—that launch off the deck to do their thing in the air over the Pacific Ocean.

Vic had escorted Veronica, now wearing a helmet, earplugs, and a “float coat,” to a spot right behind the LSO platform, maybe twenty feet away from where the jets will eventually land. _Trap._ Standing all around her, wearing flight suits with white vests over them, are a clutch of LSOs—Landing…something Officers who are responsible for helping the jets touch down safely.

The whole complicated dance of the jets readying for takeoff seems aimless and confusing to Veronica at first, but some of her late night reading and careful listening to Logan must be paying off because, by the time Logan’s Super Hornet reaches the front of the queue, some of it has snapped into focus.

Men in different colored shirts—green and yellow mostly—are running around and waving and soon Logan’s jet taxis forward, the blast shield rising up behind it while the wings unfold, all of the fins and flaps waggling. The green shirts clear out and then the Super Hornet shifts to full power, waves of heat radiating down the deck, the sound of the engines a deep, continuous roar of thunder.

Veronica’s nails cut into her palms. It’s a beautiful blue day up on the deck of the aircraft carrier; gentle sun, puffy clouds, and a brisk breeze. Across the flight deck, the massed crowd of loved ones lets out the occasional whoop, but she is fixated on the giant metal beast, spitting dragon fire and practically straining at the catapult mechanism.

 _Logan_ _is inside that jet. Flying that jet. You’re going to see Logan fly._

She wants to come out of her skin with excitement. She wants to hide. Words from Wikipedia are scrolling through her mind. ' _Takeoff and landing, the two most critical times during flight, are when jets are most prone to crash.'_

One of the yellow shirt guys positions himself scarily near the nose of Logan’s jet and kneels down, touching the deck and then dramatically throwing out an arm in an attitude that clearly says ‘go for it!’

At the last moment, Veronica slams her eyes closed. There is a metallic screech followed by a giant WHOOMPH and by the time she wrenches them open— _what the hell are you doing?_ —Logan’s jet is gone off the edge of the carrier and roaring up into the atmosphere. Billowing clouds of steam waft up from the catapult tracks as the mechanism retracts smoothly.

Veronica follows the jet up as far as she can, craning her head back and shading her eyes from the sun as more jets launch in quick succession from the two catapults. Finally, in the air over the carrier, all of the jets join up in formation and do a few swooping passes. She can’t help but admire their grace and precision. _Admit it Veronica, this is pretty fucking impressive._

The ship fires its guns, big booming blasts that impact the water far off the side of the carrier and ignite an echoing roar from the crowd. Then the Hawkeye helicopters do a search and rescue demonstration, dangling a flippered man in a wetsuit over the ocean by a forty-foot long cable and raising him back up again.

Veronica’s heart-rate is slowing back down. It’s sort of surreal to see this all play out in front of her. No movie screen. No safe distance. Just in-your-face raw power and might. Besides her, there are a few other visitors near and around the LSO platform, each escorted by a crewmember. One of them— _because life is like that_ —is the unimpressed Navy dad from the line that morning. It’s loud on the flight deck, even with the jets gone, but Veronica can hear him peppering his escort with statements disguised as questions. She rolls her eyes and moves away a few steps.                         

Vic, who had drifted away into the clutch of LSOs, catches Veronica’s movement and jogs back over to her, pointing up at the jet formation as it caroms overhead. “That’s Mouth, lead jet in the second section. He got that position because his carrier landing grade is so high.” Veronica nods and Vic leans into her ear, clearly settling in to impress her. “Did you know that there are only about two thousand aviators in the entire world who are qualified to land on an aircraft carrier?” She gives him a tight smile and he points at the angle of the deck and starts to explain its vital role in simultaneous launches and recoveries and…

His words wash over Veronica as she alternately nods, makes ‘mmhm’ noises of deep interest and tries to track Logan’s jet in the sky. _There it is. No, the other one._

The crowd gets revved up again when the announcer introduces the “touch-and-gos.” Each of the jets, in turn, takes a pass at the deck, coming in as though to land, but instead slamming on the afterburner and taking off past the edge of the deck in a heart pounding roar. They are close enough to the action that Veronica can feel the heat as each of the first three jets blazes by. Her bare legs feel gritty from the gross residue kicking up from the flight deck as they do their passes. Her own excitement, slow growing but impossible to deny, ratchets up with each near landing. Veronica is vibrating, fingers tapping on her thigh, breaths quick and shallow again. Trying to counter the feeling, she draws in deep gulps of air, the acrid stink of diesel fumes stinging against the tissues of her nose and mouth.

Logan’s Super Hornet is coming down next.  

She can see his circling dot growing bigger, bigger, and more plane-shaped on the horizon until suddenly it is a fully realized jet and then seconds later it is there—right _there_ —in front of her, maybe twenty feet away, wheels down and tail-hook up, big so damn big and hot and loud and shaking her body with its vibrations. Her whole face is flushed, she’s up on her tip-toes, bouncing up and down in spite of herself. She can feel her eyes go wide and her jaw drop. In a split second, the jet is gone—he’s gone—back up into the sky with twin cones of white hot fire blazing behind it.

_Ho. ly. Shit._

Most of the rest of the show feels anti-climatic. Vic wanders back over and yell-gesticulates a bunch of explanations at her that she can’t really hear, but she nods along anyways.          

Finally, it’s time for the jets to land. Around her, the white-vested LSOs are all business. The guy who is in charge is talking into an old-fashioned telephone style receiver and waving what looks like a large black joystick attached to a thick cable. Veronica can’t hear him, but she’s pretty sure she catches him mouthing the words “roger ball” into his head set as each of the jets comes into contact. She smiles a little to herself.

Logan has tried to explain the giant light-up LED screen looking thing that she’s standing behind—something about a lens, or lenses and “the ball”—but all that she’s really retained is that it somehow helps the pilots know if they are lined up properly with the deck.

The eight jets in the air start to come down one by one, fins and wings wobbling as they make slight corrections on the orders of the LSO. They’re aiming for one of the four steel “wires”—long cables about as thick around as Veronica’s wrist—stretched taut across the deck just feet away from her. The first jet down slams onto the deck, catching the second wire and coming to a complete stop in mere seconds. Vic sidles closer to Veronica and shout-explains that they’re aiming for the number three wire. The second jet to land slams down a little nastily, hooking the number one wire. The crowd in the bleachers across the flight deck cheers lustily, but the LSOs around Veronica wince almost in unison.

Then it’s Logan’s turn. Veronica watches as the LSO on the headset gives him the okay (another seemingly-silent “roger ball”) and his jet starts to make its approach. Her fight-or-flight instinct mounts back up, but she manages to keep her eyes open this time. It just all happens so _fast._ One second he’s screaming through the air; the next second the plane booms down onto the deck, twenty thousand pounds of mechanical fury halted by the catch of the seemingly delicate tailhook on the third steel wire.

Logan’s jet comes to a surprisingly smooth stop maybe fifty yards away, immediately releasing the wire and accordion-folding its wings, before making a smooth pivot on its wheels and steering back down the flight deck in Veronica’s direction.

As the jet taxis toward her, guided by the waving arms of a yellow shirted crewman, the figures of Logan and John are very visible inside the clear bubble of the cockpit. Their features concealed by helmets and masks, they are reduced to little alien looking heads. 

 _Don’t wave. Don’t wave. Don’t be the proud mother at the school pageant._ The Logan-pilot turns its head in her direction. _Ah, fuck it._ She waves. It’s not like he can see her anyway.

A few feet down from her, the retired Navy dad from the line this morning leans toward the LSO taking notes on a small notepad.

“How is that one going to be graded? He caught the number three wire, but looked a liiitle high on the ball to me.”

The LSO’s is completely straightfaced. “Oh, that’s definitely an ‘Okay’ grade.”

From her nearby perch, watching Logan’s jet slowly maneuver over to the edge of the flight deck to park, Veronica bristles and she marches over to the two men. “Okay? That looked pretty damn impressive to me!”

The Navy dad grins. “Typical naval understatement, sweetie. That’s pretty much the top grade there is.”

Veronica tilts her head and gives him her best go-ahead-I-dare-ya smile. _Call me ‘sweetie’ again and I swear I will MacGyver one of the many electrical appliances available on board into a taser so that I can end you._

He backs up a few steps.

____________

 

After the airshow is over, Veronica stays on the flight deck. The other visitors who remain have spread out across the vast expanse, huddled in groups, talking and taking in the view. Despite the season, several are whale watching with binoculars.

Seeking out a private place, Veronica tucks herself against the wall of some giant box thing-y or another, watching as the carrier plows through the water, leaving a carpet of white foam in its wake.

Her thoughts drift, following the water in ebbs and curls, circling around and around. It’s been an overwhelming day and she relishes the small moment of peace.

_How did you wind up here, Veronica Mars?_

Suddenly, Logan’s arms wrap around her from behind. He has stripped out of his g-suit and gear but is still in his flight suit and smells like healthy sweat and exertion.

Veronica tips her head back to rest against his chest. “You were amazing,” she says softly. “I had no idea.”

“Thanks. The evolution went really well—everything as planned.”

“Yeah and an ‘okay’ landing.” Veronica pumps her fist in sarcastic excitement.

She can feel laughter rumbling in Logan’s chest, “Oh yeah, I heard about that. Thanks for defending my honor, pumpkin.”

“Any time.” A seagull swoops by, hovering for a moment just feet away from them, maneuvering in the winds created by the boat. “It’s not always like this, though, is it?” Her hand drifts down to his thigh, settling instinctively over the long, ropey scar she can just barely feel through his clothing. “You know, safe and sunny with happy cheering crowds and near perfect landings?”

Logan presses a kiss to the top of her head. “No, it’s not.”

Veronica sighs—a sound that feels like it comes all the way up from her toes—“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’m really…I don’t know how to say this without sounding cheesy, but I’m really proud of you, Logan.” Somehow it’s easier to have this talk when she’s not facing him. “You had built yourself a pretty nice life, before I came back.”

Logan takes a long breath in, his chest rising and falling against her back. “I didn’t really, though. I mean…I can see where it would look like that. I had a lot of nice things in my life. I had happy days, a good job. But there was always something missing. A giant, gaping—” He gently grasps her waist and rotates her around so that they are face to face. “—Veronica-shaped hole. Not a day went by that I wasn’t aware of that, you know.”

It comes out naturally, without any conscious thought. “I love you, Logan.”

He swallows a few times and blinks against the sudden tears in the corners of his eyes. The wind— _it must be the wind_ —is whipping tears into her eyes, too.

“Thank you, Veronica. I love you too. _So_ much.”

“You’re damn right you do.”   

______________

                                            

There’s still one more day until the ship docks back at San Diego and Logan is released, so that evening Veronica makes her way home alone to the empty condo.

After a restless night of little sleep, she wakes up early on Sunday morning and hops in her car. Camera in her messenger bag, she drives out to La Jolla and picks up Daniel Allen, law firm partner and all around dickhead, as he leaves his house.

Three hours later, she’s got shots of him picking up his dry cleaning, dropping his kids off at their horseback riding lessons, cheating on his wife at the Hyatt Regency, and exchanging a small USB drive with a questionably mustachioed man behind a gas station.

She drives to Mars Investigation, quiet and closed for the weekend, where she lets herself in, prints the pictures, sticks them in a manila envelope, and slides the envelope under her father’s office door.

_It doesn’t have to be all or nothing._

_It doesn’t mean anything._

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Innumerable thanks are due, as usual, to **marshmallowtasha** for beta-ing this chapter and lending her brilliant mind to thoughts as deep and diverse as Kieth Mars' inner motivations and Logan's shaving routine.


	6. September, 2014

**September 2014**

 

_______________

 

 

 

> **To:** Veronica Mars <vmars@gmail.com>  
>  **From:** Logan Echolls <logan.echolls@us.navy.mil>  
>  **Sent:** Monday, September 22nd, 2014  
>  **Subject:** A teensy tiny request
> 
> Veronica,
> 
> My darling, my dear, light of my life…do you want to give a good home to a broken down old jet?
> 
> We’ve got this one Hornet—214, I’m sure you’ll be interested to know—that we can NOT seem to keep flight operational. Every time my guys pre-flight it on the ground, it seems like it’s going to be fine, but just let some poor pilot get in the sucker and think he’s going to be shooting off the cat and…well, it’s basically the plane equivalent of the sad wah-wah trumpet sound.
> 
> In the two weeks we’ve been out on this training exercise so far, 214 has had electric glitches, radar problems, some sort of intermittent weapon release alarms, and god only knows what else. It’s killing our maintenance department’s scores and that means the skipper is on the warpath and giving Frenchie shit, which means poor little ol’ Line Division Officer me is catching the downhill roll and, well, it’s been awesome.
> 
> The other pilots are starting to cuss 214 out and call it the limp bird, which I might not take _quite_ so personally if it didn’t happen to be the one with my name stenciled on the side. I think the poor girl is starting to get a complex. I know I am.
> 
> Seriously, Veronica, it’s a sad sack of a jet, but it’s so cute with its adorable rotary canons and its sweet little LEX. Don’t you think we could find room for it in the garage?
> 
> Pleeeeease? I’ll feed and walk it every day!
> 
> I can practically visualize the face you’re making right now, but just to make sure I’m right, take a picture and send it to me.
> 
> Love you,
> 
> Logan

**___________**

 

“Veronica, hold up!”

Veronica turns around to look back at the lecture hall she’s just escaped from. One of her classmates is running after her, having clearly been trying to get her attention for a little while. She stops and lifts her hand to shade her eyes, “Hazel, hey.”

The other girl smiles with what looks like relief and calls out, “Can I walk with you?”

“Sure, of course. I’m so sorry. I didn’t hear you earlier!” Veronica puts her hand near her ear and makes a yakity-yak talking motion, “Too busy listening to the voices in my head.”

“Oh, no problem.” Hazel, a dark skinned girl who is short enough to look petite even next to Veronica, finally catches up and falls into step as they both steer toward Amsterdam Avenue, hands in pockets and chins tucked down to their chests against the brisk late September wind. Veronica waits a minute for Hazel to start a conversation, but nothing is forthcoming except some slightly heavy breathing.

 _What is this about_?

Veronica has known Hazel Andrews since the second semester of their 1L year when shared Property Law and Constitutional Law lectures meant that they moved in a lot of the same circles and frequently hung out with the same group of friends. Hazel is from Mississippi originally, so the two girls had mostly just commiserated about being unaccustomed to the New York weather. After last year’s Logan-induced black hole, though, Veronica hadn’t seen the other girl around campus much.

The way Hazel chased her down suggests that she wants to talk about something, but she doesn’t quite seem to know how to start. They are friendly, but not exactly friends, and Veronica doesn’t know how—or if—she should prod her. They walk silently side-by-side and Hazel jams her hands deeper into her pockets, darting a slightly nervous look in Veronica’s direction. Something about this scenario feels oddly familiar in a way that Veronica can’t quite put her finger on. For no discernible reason, she feels amped up; ready for…something.

Finally, the other girl takes a long breath in. “Um, how’s it going?”

Veronica shrugs, willing to let Hazel take some time to get to the point. “Not bad. Just trying to summon up some vestige of interest in Legal Ethics.”

Hazel smiles a little, still staring at the toes of her boots as they walk quickly; this is well-trod ground among the third year law students, an easy conversational gambit. “Yeah, I know what you mean. All of that real legal work this summer pretty much hammers home what a joke some of these classes are.”

“Where did you intern?”

“Truman Mann.”

Veronica is gearing up to volley back some small talk about what a great firm that is blah blah blah, when Hazel pushes forward with a complete non-sequitur.

“Veronica, d’you know Chris Hozner?”

“Uh, yeah.” Chris is another 3L—nothing too remarkable law school wise; tall-ish, blond-ish, asshole-ish—just one of many.

Hazel stares straight ahead. “Do you…like him?”

 _Like him,_ _like him? Is this some sort of check-before-I-ask-him-out kind of thing? Did I get zapped back into middle school?_

“I have a boyfriend.”

Hazel lets out a small cough of laughter, breaking up the oddly formal mood of the conversation. “Oh, I know.” She tugs on one earring and gives Veronica a knowing look out of the corner of her eye. “Everyone knows.”

 _Right_. _Fucking US Magazine._ The article about Logan's crash and his reunion with Veronica had apparently made its way around the law school crowd last year. 

Off balance, Veronica struggles to regain the thread of the conversation. “So, no I don’t like Chris. I don’t really know him much. Why?”

Hazel goes back to staring at the toes of her boots for a minute before she bites her lower lip and launches into her story. “Um, well, it started this summer. Chris and I, we worked at the same firm. He asked me out and we went on two dates, which was stupid of me, because when it didn’t work out I still had to see him everyday, y’know?”

A small pause as Hazel gathers her thoughts. Veronica wrinkles her brow and nods. Her instincts are telling her to stay silent for now and she listens to them. They walk on down the street, their pace slowing as Hazel continues.

“After that, he wouldn’t go away. At first it was just stopping by my desk. Nothing… _too_ weird; just some leaning. And comments that made me uncomfortable, but weren’t quite over the line. Like he’d compliment my shirt while staring at my boobs, that kind of thing.” She looks to Veronica, who frowns in understanding. “I should have gone to HR, right, but it never seemed quite that bad, and no one else ever saw it. And, you know…me,” she waves her hand up and down her body, “little Black girl in a cutthroat law firm. I didn’t want it to look like… Well, anyway, I just told myself the summer was almost over and then I wouldn’t have to be around him all the time.”

Veronica steers them off of the sidewalk and over toward a large concrete planter where they both take a seat, shivering slightly in the wind, but engaged in their conversation. Veronica asks, “But it hasn’t stopped?”

“No!” It bursts out of Hazel and she looks almost surprised at her own vehemence, moderating her tone before continuing, “Its worse.” She carefully tucks a soft coil of escaping hair back into place under her head wrap and makes a minute adjustment to her collar. “He’s got my schedule figured out; he knows where I live and where I hang out.” She chuckles bleakly, “where I used to hang out.”

“And he’s following you?”

“At first that was it, yeah. He’d follow me and shout at me until I stopped and talked to him. That seemed to make it worse, though, so I didn’t stop anymore, right? But…he’s really good at finding me when no one else is around. He’d…yell crude shit at me.” Hazel closes her eyes and brings her clasped hands up to her mouth. “Recently, um, if he can get me alone he’ll find a way to get in front of me and block my way. He started…he’ll touch himself. Grope himself. You know.”

Veronica grimaces. “What a Prince Charming.”

“Yeah. I tried having my roommate walk around with me everywhere, but he’s really...smart about it. Last week, he waited until she was late getting out of her CrimCon seminar and he…he…he exposed himself.”

“You mean…the full monty?”

Hazel bites her lip. “Yeah. Or, well, his junk anyway. Is that what that means? I’ve never seen that movie.”

Veronica makes a ‘continue’ motion with her hand.

“So that was when I realized I needed to go to the police. I tried both the campus police and the local PD, but they both told me the same thing.”

Veronica frowns in awareness. “Let me guess; no evidence.”

“Yeah. I’m always alone when he catches me. There aren’t any bruises or anything. No witnesses. I mean…I’m in law school, we studied what was needed for an Order of Protection, but I never thought…I mean, I’m specializing in corporate law!”

“Cameras?”

“Campus security didn’t seem to think so. Frankly, they didn’t seem that interested in checking. I don’t really know what to do.”

Veronica’s mind is spinning ferociously. “You know, I could…” She’s not even sure how she plans to finish the sentence. _Call my dad and see if he can recommend someone? Walk with you everywhere?_

Hazel exhales a big relieved puff of air, though, and turns to her with a bright smile. “Oh, _would_ you? Thank you! Thank you so much! I know you haven’t done anything like that since you’ve been here.”

“Wait, you know…what?”

A blush warms Hazel’s cheeks. “I like to Google people. It’s a creepy habit, I know, but I just…do it. First year, when we had that class together, well,” she laughs, “you were definitely one of the most interesting I’ve ever looked up. I mean, a teenage PI? How boss is that? I would never have said anything, but when all of this happened…”

“Yeah. I get it.”

“So…you’ll help me? I can pay you. I meant to say.”

Veronica hesitates and Hazel adds quietly. “I really need your help, Veronica. I don’t know what else to do.”

_Crap._

Apparently she has a client.

  **___________**

Six hours later and staring at her computer screen, it doesn’t seem quite so straightforward. Veronica’s brain feels like it is covered in layers of rust; all afternoon she’s been second guessing decisions that she would once have made without hesitation.

Somehow she’d always thought, in the back of her mind, that if she ever decided to work a case again it would all come right back to her. All of those old instincts. After all, it’s not like she’s spent the last eight years sitting around letting her brain mold. _I think. I reason. I figure things out every day._

It’s just…she’d forgotten how much different the thinking and reasoning feels when it’s for a high stakes case on someone else’s behalf. What happens to Hazel if Veronica fucks this up? Her situation—the harassment—could go bad in so many ways. This case feels personal; something Veronica thought she’d trained out of herself a long time ago.

_Have you lost your detachment, Veronica?_

All she knows is that she spent the afternoon in her Oil and Gas Law seminar staring intensely at the back of Chris Hozner’s head, wondering if it was possible to wish a scumbag dead with the power of her mind. And…can the back of someone’s neck _smirk_? When the time came to surreptitiously follow Chris out of class and—what? Learn his routine? Check out what kind of car he drove, if any?—Veronica had dithered, and then gotten caught in a clump of students in the hallway. Chris had gotten away.

Failure upon failure. Awesome.

Back in her apartment at Lenfast, she’d confidently booted her laptop up and cruised over to the Prying Eyez database— _research! That was always the first step!_ —only to find herself without an account. Her old log-in had no longer worked and, when she’d tried to set up a new account, the site’s terms of service had informed her that a valid PI license number was necessary to access the database.

_Well shit. Come on, Veronica. The old Veronica Mars wouldn’t be stopped by a mere database log-in, she’d… she’d…_

_Use her dad’s._

Veronica sighs, bringing her head down to rest gently against the keyboard. _Yeah, she probably would have_. She’d forgotten somehow in the intervening years just how much of a team sport Veronica Mars: Girl Detective had actually been. The old network—her dad, Mac, Cliff, Wallace, Leo, Sacks—was always there wittingly or unwittingly to help.  

It’s not like Veronica couldn’t call her dad. He probably _(okay, definitely)_ wouldn’t give her his log-in information, but he’d be able to refer her to someone in New York who she could call and ask. Another PI who she could turn Hazel’s case over to.

 _And if I don’t want to turn the case over?_   Well, that probably wouldn’t go quite so well.

It’s not a mystery to Veronica how her dad feels about the idea of her investigating: Don’t do it. Full stop.

Veronica leans back in her squeaky desk chair, thoughts flying back to the end of her summer in San Diego.

After her little stunt with the pictures of Daniel Allen this August, she’d been half expecting a big lecture from her father, complete with disapproving fatherly looks and pointed digs about Logan being a bad influence. Instead, he’d seemed almost…tentative around her. Weekly dinners had continued and, once she’d moved back to New York, regular phone calls, but no mention at all was made of the Allen case. Or of Veronica investigating. Or their fight.

Sometimes Veronica can’t understand how she ever thought there was a possibility that Keith Mars was not her biological father; the ability to compartmentalize—to shove things away behind an impenetrable mask and go on cooking dinner and making small talk like nothing was the matter—surely that was a tell-tale genetic hand-me-down.

It’s not like Veronica had precisely _wanted_ to talk about her foray into investigating, though. Why make a big deal out of a nothing—a one time thing? It hadn’t even seemed important enough to mention to Logan, let alone fight with her dad about. She’s always hated fighting with her dad.  

Better to just ignore the whole incident, chalk it up as a momentary aberration, and head back to her real life as a law student. A life that will lead to a future where she can pay the bills and make the people who love her proud.

_So then how do you find yourself here, Veronica? With a client. A client you can’t possibly help without crossing some of those invisible lines you drew a long time ago._

She drums her fingers gently against the top of the desk. It’s going to be pretty much impossible to work this case without access to that database.

_I can call Dad._

_I can contact another PI myself._

_Or…_

A couple of keystrokes take her over to a website—Veronica ignores the fact that the search engine fills in the terms behind her, giving away that she’s googled this before.

There it is: William Street.

Location of the Private Investigator’s exam.

Either New York is way ahead of California, or times they are a changin’, because the exam is held at one of those computer test centers where you can make an appointment at practically any time and walk out with your scores. Two clicks later and the Tuesday, 9:30am slot is taken. _So much for Advanced Contracts._

Veronica refuses to second-guess herself. This isn’t some Rubicon she’s crossing. One piece of paper won’t alter her life’s plan. She just needs it to help Hazel.

When she took the California PI exam, she studied for weeks beforehand, but this time her score doesn’t matter. She only needs over a seventy to qualify for a license. Still though…

Veronica clicks over to a practice test, just to see, and then smiles as the first question appears on the screen.

 

> >What is a defense of having been in another place at the time the crime was committed?

_An alibi._

**___________**

 

 

> **To:** Logan Echolls <logan.echolls@us.navy.mil>  
>  **From:** Veronica Mars <vmars@gmail.com>  
>  **Sent:** Wednesday, September 24th, 2014  
>  **Subject:** *taps mic*
> 
> Hey Navy man,
> 
> I know you said the internet on the boat could be sporadic, but I haven’t heard from you in almost three days. That’s a lot of emails from me going unanswered…so sad, so alone in your inbox. The last time you guys were out I got an email at least once a day. What gives? You getting tired of writing to me?
> 
> (Imagine that last said with a wry sarcasm…not pathetic whining, if you please.)
> 
> New York is New York is New York. I think I’m figuring out why they call this year 3LOL. I’m sitting in Ethics right now and easily half of the class isn’t here. I’m here, but I’m writing you an email while pretending to take notes, so I’m not sure that I can count this as a moral victory.
> 
> I’ve got some…interesting news, but I’d rather tell you about it in person. Or as in person as we get, anyway. When is the carrier docking? Are you still going to be able to call me on Saturday?
> 
> I hope you’re being careful out there Navy-ing. Kick the tires and light the fires, watch out for bogeys, roger ball, etc, etc, etc. 
> 
> Veronica

 

_______________

“Hi Dad.”

Tucking the phone between his ear and shoulder, Keith Mars raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Veronica! To what do I owe the pleasure?” Wednesday at mid-day is an unusual time for her to call him; their normal schedule is Sunday afternoons with the occasional weekday evening.

On the other end of the line, her voice is light and breezy. “What? I need a reason?”

 _Uh oh._ “Is everything okay, sweetie?”

“Yeah, of course. Hey, you remember that moot court class I’m taking?”

He taps his pen on the desk blotter. “Uh, no, actually. I thought it was Ethics, Advanced Contracts, um, Oil and Gas, and that Business Responsibilities thing this semester?”

“Psh. Getting forgetful in your old age. Anyway, I’ve got this group project…”

“Mmhm?”

“I need some employment records for a fake brief we’re putting together. The mock case we’ve been assigned involves a PI, funnily enough, and I thought it’d save us some time to use my old employment records, you know, as a template. You’ve still got those, right?”

Keith closes his eyes. “Mmhm.”

“Think you could put your hands on ‘em? Scan them in and email them to me?” Veronica is still channeling her pep squad voice.

“I could, but what—”

“It’s kind of time sensitive; I really need them today. You do know how to work the scanner, don’t you?”

He rolls his eyes. “Of course. Turn it on, pour the water in, don’t forget the grounds and the filter, and out comes a delicious, piping-hot, scanned document, right?”

“I’ll look forward to getting your latte in my email this afternoon.”

He scoffs. “A latte. What kind of fancy-schmancy scans are they getting you hooked on out there in the big city?”

“Aw, pop. How you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm…”

Suddenly, the levity drops out of the conversation for Keith. “Stay in Paree, Veronica.”

His pseudo advice doesn’t seem to register. _Does it ever?_   She plows right on in typical Veronica fashion, overriding any other questions he might have had.

“Okay Dad, I’ll talk to you later. You’ll send those records?”

“Will do, kid,” he says, but she’s already gone.

Keith hangs up and looks around his office. When Veronica had called, he’d been in the middle of a pile of background checks, but now all of his parental spidey senses are on full alert and he doubts he’ll be able to settle back into them.

_What is going on with her?_

That “for a school project” story didn’t ring any more true to him now than it had when she was in high school. Then, whatever she thought she was cleverly covering up was usually for a case, but that couldn’t be it this time, could it? What on earth could she need her employment records for?

After their disagreement this summer and Veronica’s little foray into photography (which, incidentally, had given him exactly the information his client had wanted…she hadn’t lost her instincts) he’d hoped the whole matter was closed. Veronica hadn’t said anything. She’d packed up to go right back to New York and everything he’d always wanted for her with no further…unpleasantness.

So Keith hadn’t said anything either.

Now, every night in his dark, silent bedroom, he wonders if he did the right thing.

One night his mind offers up, _she’s an adult. She’s making her own choices._ The next it's, _you should bring it up. You’re her father._

His instincts—his much ballyhooed instincts—seem to be all out of whack on this issue. Now, whenever he thinks of his daughter, guilt and fear and pride and the tiniest smidges of jealously all stew around in the terrible, overwhelming love he’s felt ever since the first moment Veronica was placed in his hands.

In the depths of his mind, Keith knows that he stole Veronica’s childhood. His own career in shambles, marriage exploded, personal reputation destroyed, he'd leaned on his sixteen-year-old daughter. Let her cook dinner. Let her work at the office. Let her investigate criminals and adulterers and sex perverts. Turned a blind eye, let her have her space, let her handle herself. Let her stay in Neptune instead of going to Stanford in the first place.

Because he’d had no one else.

_Way to go Keith; bang up parenting job there._

Lianne had left and he’d allowed Veronica to replace her as his partner. His companion. The person he had bounced things off of and come home to at night. She’d filled that part of the role better than Lianne ever could. 

Keith sighs, leaning back in his desk chair, and then swiveling it to roll over to the filing cabinet where the old records are stored.

Veronica seems to think that he’s never forgiven her for the incident involving the Kane estate security tapes, but in reality he’s never forgiven himself.

So he had sent her away from Neptune, punished himself. Sacrificed for her, truly, for the first time. And it worked, dammit. Veronica was happy at Stanford, happy during her gap year in San Francisco, happy in New York. _Until…_

He pushes that thought away as he locates Veronica’s employee file. No need to bring Logan into this. Yet another subject he’s not fully rational on.

The only thing that made all of it worth it—the years of separation, the lonely Christmases and Thanksgivings and birthdays—was the idea that his daughter was happy, if far away.

And then she blew back into California; back to everything he hadn’t wanted for her—doesn’t want for her. Keith can literally feel his genes at work, crawling around in her, pulling her away from a safe, happy life, calling her to spend her energy banging her head against the brick wall that is the Neptune legal system. Futile. Dangerous.

He stares down at the pages of Veronica’s file with blank, unseeing eyes.

He can’t get the images of her out of his mind. Veronica, age six, jaw grim with determination; age twenty-two, beaming at her Stanford graduation; age sixteen, sobbing heartbroken; age twenty-seven, pressed between Logan and his pillar, radiating joy; age nineteen, hollow-eyed and steely and vengeful.

_What’s best for Veronica. What’s best for Veronica._

He’s tried everything he can to keep her from getting sucked back in, but all it’s done is make her even more angry at him. ‘ _I don’t need you, Veronica. I can do it on my own.’ And other lies we tell ourselves, right Keith?_

Files in hand, he pushes up out of the chair, and heads over to the office’s scanner.

 

____________

 

 

> **To:** Logan Echolls <logan.echolls@us.navy.mil>  
>  **From:** Veronica Mars <vmars@gmail.com>  
>  **Sent:** Thursday, September 25th, 2014  
>  **Subject:** Your punishment
> 
> All right, this is an unacceptable level of non-communication. I know you’re probably out doing something extremely patriotic and manly, but screw it.
> 
> I'm a just go ahead and send you a cute picture of a cat every few hours until I hear from you again.
> 
> Sailor, you have been warned!
> 
> **Attachment:** NoKittyThatBoxIsTooSmallForYou.jpg

 

____________

Thursday, and Veronica has had no word from Logan since Monday afternoon. He had warned her that the internet on the aircraft carrier was often unreliable, but this seems to go a bit beyond that.

She’s thrown all of her energy into Hazel’s case and the coping strategy feels familiar in a way that is a little scary. The PI Exam had gone well—she’d scored a ninety with no studying and can’t help but feel a bit smug—her father had sent along the proof of employment she’d needed to start the process and get her temporary license. The temporary license number, in turn, was enough to get her in to the Prying Eyez database and access the details she was looking for.

Chris Hozner, twenty-six, from Cherry Hill, NJ. Did his undergrad at Duke University, and got a BA in Psychology— _creeper, know thyself_. The database had given her his current address, a sublet in Morningside Heights, and Veronica had spent all of Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning tailing him, getting to know his environs and his routine. And realizing how much more difficult tailing is when you don’t have a car.

On Wednesday, Chris’s day had taken him from bodega, to law library, to bar and strip club, and then home. No stops to harass Hazel or any other unwilling victim. Thus far, Thursday had been dedicated strictly to classes. The Oil and Gas class they share— _didn’t have to skip that one, at least_ —and a Criminal Investigations lecture on regulating police activity that Veronica found genuinely fascinating. All in all, Chris seems to be a little more nose to the grindstone than she might have predicted.

At noon, she’d had a meeting scheduled with Hazel at the law library, but the other girl had called and asked if Veronica could meet her at her apartment instead.

“I haven’t left my apartment since Monday.”

“Hazel…”

“I know, I know…it’s just that every time I try to go out, I feel like he’s watching. Out there. Somewhere.”

“Hazel, I’ve been following him all day. He’s just been going to his classes.”

“You do…believe me?” Hazel's voice hovers between anxious and upset. 

“Of course I do." Veronica soothes, "Do you think he knows he’s being followed?”

“I don’t know. He’s really…patient? He left me alone for almost two whole weeks when Tatali was walking everywhere with me, but then the one day she wasn’t there…”

“Say hello to my leetle friend?”

“Yeah.”

Veronica sighs. “So, you think if he even suspects someone might be watching…?”

“He’ll back off. Which sounds great, but really all it does is freak me out even more. And leave me without any proof.”

Veronica tilts her head speculatively. There's nothing else for it. “Hazel, how do you feel about wearing a little jewelry?”

 

_______________

 

 

> **To:** Logan Echolls <logan.echolls@us.navy.mil>  
>  **From:** Veronica Mars <vmars@gmail.com>  
>  **Sent:** Friday, September 26th, 2014  
>  **Subject:** You were warned
> 
> The cat bombardment continues. Be safe. Email me as soon as you can.
> 
> **Attachment:** SmallCatUnicorn.jpg  
>  **Attachment:** KittenAndDucklings.jpg  
>  **Attachment:** KittyAndBigDogFriend.jpg

_______________

On Friday afternoon, Veronica stands in the showroom of Security Supplies and More on 9th Avenue, hovering uneasily in the vicinity of the body cameras.

The salesmen—a husky middle-aged guy with a cop crew cut and a Jersey accent—swoops by her for the third time. “Sure I can’t show you anything, Lady?”

Veronica can feel the small muscle at the corner of her eye twitch, but she ignores it and waves her hand at the display. “I’m looking at this one.”

“Oh yeah, our mid-line body camera. Solid specs. Color, day and night vision, wide dynamic, auto-iris. That price is for the camera itself. Mounts are over there.” He nods at the other wall. “We’ve got all kinds.”

“Okay, well…I’m just going to think about it for a minute.”

He gives her an indulgent smile. “Spying on the nanny?”

“Something like that.”

As the salesman wanders away, Veronica leans in to look again at the camera. All of her instincts and experience are telling her that this is the way to resolve this case. Strap Hazel up with a body camera and get some actual video proof of the harassment that she can take to the police. Chris is so cautious that Veronica could tail him for weeks without ever getting any shots; weeks in which Hazel will feel more and more terrorized.

The problem is that the camera costs over four hundred dollars. Add in the price for the mounts, the lenses, batteries, and the whole package will run close to seven hundred dollars. No matter what she winds up charging Hazel—something she hasn’t really thought through at all either—it will never cover this. Veronica herself doesn’t have enough in savings to buy the camera and still eat for the rest of the month. The purchase would have to go on her infrequently-used credit card.

_And then what?_

Buying the camera is a moment of decision, maybe even more so than taking the PI exam or applying for a license. That could be a one time thing. Write off the fifty dollar application fee as a fair price to help out a friend, stick the piece of paper in the back of a drawer somewhere and forget about it.

This, though. This is debt. This is an investment. The only way to justify buying the body camera is if she’s going to use it again, and often enough to earn back her money.

This is a business.

_At least for a little while._

Veronica’s hand hovers over the box for a moment. She grabs it and tucks it under her arm, the sharp cardboard corner digging into her side as she quickly snags mounts and other accessories and ferries them over to the counter.

The salesman raises his eyebrows as he starts to scan everything in. “Anything else, Lady?”

This time her grin bares all of her teeth. “What do you have in the way of tasers?”

 

_______________

 

> **To:** Veronica Mars <vmars@gmail.com>  
>  **From:** Logan Echolls <logan.echolls@us.navy.mil>  
>  **Sent:** Friday, September 26th, 2014  
>  **Subject:** SO SORRY!
> 
> Cease and desist the cat pictures! My inbox is ridiculous…ly awesome.  
> 
> I’m so, so sorry for the communications blackout. Early on Tuesday, they cut off all of our access to off-ship communication – internet, everything – for inscrutable Navy reasons. It happens sometimes when we’re deployed, but this is the first time I’ve known it to happen during a training mission. I’m so sorry; I should have warned you it was a possibility.
> 
> We’re still coming back in today. If I can get on the fly-in rotation, I’ll be back in San Diego early this afternoon your time and I’ll give you a call as soon as I can, but if I have to ride the boat in it’ll be later. I’ve got those appointments to go to right away…I might not able to call you until tonight.
> 
> I’ve got to go, Veronica. There’s a five deep line for the computers. I love you; I’ll talk to you soon.
> 
> Keep your phone on!

_______________

 

Saturday morning and it is go day. By the time Veronica wakes up, there’s an email from Logan waiting for her and she can feel a tension she had tried not to acknowledge slide off of her like a lead blanket.

Early in the afternoon, she makes her way over to Hazel’s apartment where they work out a routine for the day that will give Chris plenty of opportunity to take action and Veronica plenty of places to lurk at a distance.

Hazel is strapped into the body camera, given mace, a rape whistle—she raises her eyebrows at that one, but Veronica hangs it around her neck anyway—and strict instructions to bail out on the plan if anything seems even slightly awry.

And then it’s just a game of cat and video-capable mouse.

_______________

<< I’m back! >>   
Sat. Sept. 27, 2014, 8:47 pm PDT 

<< Just got out of the doctor’s office, finally, and got my phone back. >>   
Sat. Sept. 27, 2014, 8:47 pm PDT 

<< I left you a couple of voicemails. >>   
Sat. Sept. 27, 2014, 9:10 pm PDT 

<< Please call me back whenever. Even if it’s late. >>   
Sat. Sept. 27, 2014, 9:15 pm PDT 

<< I really want to hear your voice. >>   
Sat. Sept. 27, 2014, 9:32 pm PDT 

_______________

 

Saturday night at ten o’clock is not a great time to find yourself at a bar on the outskirts of a military community.

And yet here Logan Echolls is, staring down at the glass of whisky on the bar in front of him and the frustratingly silent cell phone next to it.

After three weeks of only limited email contact, and the afternoon he’s had, he pretty much wants nothing more than to hear from Veronica. He’d finally gotten off of the base an hour ago and left her two voicemails followed by a flurry of text messages. He’s been waiting impatiently ever since to hear back; something that seems less and less likely to happen as the evening ticks onward. _It’s a little past one in the morning there; she’s almost definitely asleep._

The whisky can’t seem to fully quiet the voice in his head suggesting other potential reasons for her silence. He’s ignoring it. Yes. He is.

He’d failed to get himself on the fly-in list—the CO’s dry remark about the Line Division’s performance not qualifying Logan for any special favors didn’t bode well for his post-training exercise debrief on Monday. Even riding the carrier in, Logan should have been home hours ago, but almost immediately after he’d disembarked, he’d had to report to the flight surgeon on base for a thorough check up.

Logan grimaces a little into his glass at the memory, massaging the back of his neck wearily. Because of his crash and injuries, he has to get medically cleared for flight duty three times as often as the average pilot just to maintain his status. The doctors run him through a seemingly endless series of tests and exercises and scans to ensure that no degenerative arthritis, or any of the myriad other long-term complications his injuries could lead to, have manifested. The process weighs on him more than he’d like to admit, hours of thinking about all of the things that could be going wrong somewhere in his body followed by more hours afterwards tense and grim, waiting for the results.

That specific worry, thankfully, had been taken care of— _for now_ —fifteen minutes ago with a call informing him that his flight status would remain active. “Congratulations, Lieutenant,” the nurse had said.

Now all that Logan wants to do is finish his celebratory whisky, talk to Veronica, and go home. Not necessarily in that order. He taps the blank screen of his phone once more. _One fifteen in the morning there._ _Don’t call again. You don’t want to wake her up._

“Logan Echolls!”                                                                                 

From somewhere behind him, rising above the ambient bar noise, an excited voice calls out his name. Logan groans internally. He had picked this particular bar—off the beaten track and not popular with the aviation community—specifically so that he could wallow alone while waiting for his results. He’s in no mood to see anyone he knows.

Nonetheless, he tucks his cell phone into his pocket and swivels around on the barstool to see a guy coming toward him with a wide, shit-eating grin on his face. Medium-tall, white with dark brown hair, wearing pressed khakis, a sleeveless Abercrombie tank, and a baseball cap with navy squadron insignia on it; the man is unfamiliar to Logan. Although…something about the lines of the guy’s face does set off a dim flare of recognition somewhere in the recesses of his brain.

Abercrombie approaches with his hand held out and Logan automatically responds with a quick shake, still searching the guy’s face.

“Logan Echolls,” the guy reaches out to slap Logan on the back and Logan’s teeth are immediately set on edge, “I knew that was you!”

Something about the douche-bro vibe of the stranger and the smirk-pout of his expression is most definitely ringing familiar. _I do know this guy! Who..?_ Instead of pushing the stranger away, as he really wants to do, Logan leans away from the contact, draws on his inner control, and responds with a simple, “hey.”

“It’s been a long time, huh?” Abercrombie waves over two other men wearing identical squadron hats who are standing nearby at a tall table. “Hey guys, I told you it was Logan Echolls. We went to high school together.”

The other two amble over, neither looking terribly impressed by their companion’s revelation, but both shaking Logan’s hand and settling down on bar stools a few seats down.

 _Okay, Neptune high…in the Navy_. Logan's normally razor sharp memory is fighting against his general high school indifference toward anyone outside of his direct circle.

Suddenly he has a flash of this guy, high school aged, with his arms wrapped around a girl, chin tucked possessively against the curve of her neck. Carmen Ruiz. Early in Junior year, Enbom had had a massive, unfulfilled crush on her for about a month, but she’d had a boyfriend who was a year older than them.

Tad Wilson.

A fringe 09er, kind of a jerk—but no different in that than all of the rest of them—sort of buddies with Luke Haldeman, Kelly Kuzzio, that crowd. He’s nobody who Logan particularly wants to reminisce with.

While Logan has been sorting this all out mentally, Tad has continued to babble on. By the time Logan tunes back in, Tad is saying, “Yeah man, I heard you’d become an aviator, too, after I went through.”

 _Too?_ Logan’s eyes flick again to the squadron patch on Tad’s hat. Yep. HRC-49, The Wizards. _Rotorhead._

Logan has grown up in a lot of ways since high school, but he’d readily acknowledge that developing an egalitarian world-view is not one of them. Navy fighter jet pilots are an elite and, frankly, cocky group. Comprised almost entirely of the top scorers in flight school, they view themselves as the quarterbacks of the air wing, with a hierarchy of other jet pilots and flight officers extending out below them. Down at the bottom are the helo pukes—rotorheads. At the _very_ bottom are logistical helo squadrons, like the one Tad flies for, that don’t engage in combat missions.

So yeah, the implication that he has somehow followed in Tad’s footsteps rankles a bit. Logan just nods in response, tossing back a healthy swallow of his whisky in hopes of finding an easy way to get out of this conversation.

_You’ve gone soft. No way does high school Logan worry about an easy way out._

Tad, however is clearly settling in for a long reminiscence. “You still talk to anyone from NHS? Dick Casablancas? Duncan Kane?”

Logan can feel his shoulders tighten. “No one talks to Duncan Kane. He fled the country.”

“Oh yeah, yeah. Of course.”

Tad leans forward over the bar, the movement stretching the armholes of his Abercrombie tank down far enough to expose the large, colored version of the naval aviator’s wings he has tattooed across the back of his right shoulder. It looks sort of blobby in the middle, and something tugs at Logan’s memory. Something involving Veronica.

Looking down at Logan’s nearly finished whisky, Tad motions to the bartender, who slides another down the bar toward them

“So what’s Dick up to then? You guys still party like the old days?”

“Not really, no.”

“These guys,” he nods down at his squadron mates, still sitting a few stools away, engrossed in a sports highlight reel playing on the bar television, “they don’t believe me when I tell them some of the shit we used to get up to.”

“That so.”

Tad leans across Logan to grab a handful of popcorn from the small bowl on the bar. The move takes Tad well into Logan’s personal space and he leans back in annoyance, his field of vision filled with Tad’s back and the edge of his tattoo again.

The light bulb clicks on and Logan lets out a small snort into his glass.

Tad, oblivious, leans back into position on his barstool and smirks. “Ain’t no sluts like Neptune High sluts, am I right?”

Logan spins his glass around between his hands, heat flushing the back of his neck. “Sluts, huh? I don’t recall any of the girls doing anything we weren’t doing too. Except…didn’t you have a fairly steady girlfriend in high school? Nice girl. Not the kind I’d like to hear you say nasty things about.”

Tad raises his eyebrows. “Damn. Did someone take a Women’s Studies class in college? You sound a little like a man who needs to get laid. I saw on the news about your crash. Having some problems with the ladies these days?”

Logan just stares at him. _Detach._ _Focus on your heart rate. Focus on your breathing. You control those._

Tad crunches obnoxiously on a piece of popcorn. “My buddy over there is having problems with his girl too. Nothing a little of our friend Liquid X couldn’t fix. You still got a hook up?”

It feels like a slap, this reminder of one of his biggest regrets. One of the biggest mistakes of his entire life.

 _That’s it_. Another swallow of whisky. Finish the glass. _Assholes must be crushed._

Logan nods casually at Tad. “Nice tat there, man. My buddy keeps trying to talk me into getting one, but I’m always worried that I’ll have a… _change of heart_ , if you know what I mean.”

Tad inhales sharply and pushes back from the bar, scrambling to his feet.

Logan stretches his legs out and continues softly, inexorably. “Did _you_ ever have a change of heart about _your_ tattoo?”

Tad’s stunned face suddenly twists into an ugly sneer. “I forgot who you’re dating.” He drops his voice low, complexion reddening and eyes bulging intensely. “You’d better watch it.”

Logan makes a confused ‘ _moi?’_ face and points to his own chest. Tad’s mouth is working in anger and Logan contemptuously turns his back on him, signing his credit card receipt, pushing off of the barstool, and standing to leave.

Before he can move away, though, Tad regains the use of his voice with a vengeance. “Fucking cocky ass fighter jock. Not too hard to get selected for strike with all of that money and influence behind you, was it?” Tad practically spits. “You know, this isn’t high school anymore. Everyone doesn’t have to kiss your ass. Your family has been revealed for the trash it always was.”

Logan can feel his body tensing up, straining against the leash. _Walk away. Walk away._ He turns and makes it a few steps.

Tad’s voice rises almost hysterically, desperately digging for a reaction from Logan. “Or maybe you traded other favors. You know, once your girlfriend is on film sucking some guy’s cock it would be a shame not to use that talent to your own advan—”   

The meaty smack of fist meeting flesh cuts off the rest.

_____________

 

The interview rooms of the NYPD’s 26th Precinct station don’t really look all that different than the Balboa County Sheriff’s station. Same dingy paint in a serviceable industrial color; same battered table and chairs; same smell of despair and coffee hanging in the air.

In a refreshing change of pace, however, the officer who leads Veronica and Hazel back to the room seems both diligent and professional as he listens to first Hazel’s story, then Veronica’s own.

The tale is straight-forward and sad. In the end, it had taken the better part of the day for Chris to take advantage of their bait. Veronica had followed from a close distance as Hazel walked nervously around Morningside Heights all afternoon, visiting the law library and roaming through the campuses of Columbia and Barnard with no sign of her harasser.

The two girls had shared a dispirited and slightly awkward dinner before Hazel had set out again on the least enthusiastic bar crawl Veronica has ever been party to. Hazel was practically in tears by this point—“I just want it to be _over_ , Veronica.”—and it took a tremendous amount of courage for her to head out into the city at night.

Finally, at nearly eleven-thirty that night, just as they were about to pack it in from exhaustion, Chris had popped up in an alleyway between two bars. True to his MO, he’d managed to pick a time and a place when no one was within earshot. He’d maneuvered Hazel so that she was stuck with her back to the alley, and said and done plenty to make the case for the restraining order a slam dunk.

Veronica, following behind, had waited just long enough to get the incriminating evidence on tape before coming up loudly and cheerfully to claim Hazel, interrupting the encounter as though she wasn’t aware of what was going on. Chris had beat a hasty retreat and the two women had immediately rushed back to Veronica’s apartment, extracted the video from the recorders, and headed down to the police station.

The intake officer had accepted Veronica’s explanation that she was Hazel’s PI without the skeptical comments she had been expecting, simply asking her if she was new to the area and commenting that she’d need her license number for the report.

It was almost off-putting to be treated professionally by a member of the law enforcement, and if that doesn’t say something about Veronica’s formative experiences, she doesn’t know what does.

When their story is finally done, and copies of the body cam video are logged as evidence, a warrant is put out for Chris’s arrest. The officer tells Hazel to file a complaint with the university first thing in the morning, and gives her his card in case she has any trouble with the process.

Outside of the station, Hazel gives Veronica a strong hug and thanks her fervently. It feels... Veronica doesn't really want to analyze how it feels. She's too tired. It can wait. She and Hazel share a cab back to the general campus area, and in the cab, Veronica is finally able to turn her phone back on.

She smiles as Logan’s text messages come chiming through. It’s a little past two in the morning here right now and it'll probably be close to midnight in California before she gets home—too late to call him. He must be exhausted.

Something to look forward to in the morning.

_____________

 

In a holding cell in a downtown San Diego jail, Logan Echolls sits with his head in his hands. Miraculously he is the only person in this particular cell – a state of affairs that probably won’t last the whole night, if he’s here that long. He digs his fingers into his scalp, pushing hard enough that it hurts.

_What did you do, you stupid fucking asshole?_

He’d been so sure that he was done with this; done with landing his ass on a thin cot, peering out at the world from the wrong side of the bars because of his own. Fucking. Stupidity.

It’s such a dumbass reason to be here too, a bar fight with Tad Wilson, of all people. God knows he’s reasoned his way through worse insults in recent years – faced more provocation and responded with nothing more than a sneer or cutting word.

All of his tricks, his self-imposed calming ritual, listening to his body, naming out his emotions, all failed in the face of two whiskeys and an asshole from high school.

_Neptune High strikes again._

If only Tad hadn’t gone for that last jab about Veronica and the tape. Apparently that’s still his sensitive spot after all of these years.

The fight had been broken up quickly, several of Tad’s buddies pulling Logan off of him before he’d been able to fully administer the beat-down that his body was screaming was necessary. Just Logan’s luck, there happened to be an off-duty officer in the bar who had seen him throw the first punch. He’d been escorted into the back of a cop car—under control enough by then to cooperate fully, thankfully—and tossed into this cell to “cool his head.” It’s been at least a half an hour.

Now what?

_For fuck's sake, if I have to call Veronica to fly out here and get me off on charges like some sick repeat of high school... No. Shit no._

He’s not under arrest, he’d checked carefully (and as respectfully as possible) with the officer who had led him back to the holding cell. If only he can somehow manage to get out of here without getting charged with anything, he can avoid having to report this to the chain of command and he can maybe – _maybe_ – keep his damn career.

 _How much trouble am I in here? Could this earn me restriction? Could I be demoted?_ He’s not on duty. Not in uniform. Not representing the Navy in any official capacity. _Shit._

What would the charges be anyway? There’s no way Tad would press for battery or assault – he can’t want this getting batted around on base any more than Logan does. Drunk and disorderly? Should he refuse a breathalyzer if they ask?

 _Fuck. FUCK!_ Another rake of his nails against his scalp. _I wish I could call Veronica to talk to her about this and then, you know, wipe her memory. Where’s the flashy thingy from Men In Black when you need it?_

His mental self-flagellation is interrupted by a throat clearing from the other side of the bars.

Logan looks up to see a medium-sized white guy in the classic slacks-rumpled-shirt-even-more-rumpled-tie combo of a detective. _A detective? What the hell are they bringing out the big guns for? What the hell alerts did my name set off?_

The man’s first actions seem to confirm Logan’s fears. He leans his forearm on the bars and says in a low, mumbly voice that sounds vaguely familiar. “Logan Echolls, I heard you were back here.”

Logan clamps down tightly on the smartass remarks that immediately rise to his lips and simply nods. The detective shifts, bringing his face fully into the light.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

This time, the connection is much easier to make. _Well isn’t this just blast from the past night._  “Deputy Leo?”

“Well, Detective D’Amato, but yeah.”

They eye each other for a moment, their previous relationship not necessarily having been one that would encourage ‘how have you been?’ small talk.

Finally, Logan asks, “So…am I being charged?”

“Nope, you’re not.”

“Am I free to go?”

Leo shakes his head. “No way.”

“Wait, what?”

“There’s no way this precinct is going to release you to drive yourself home right now.”

 _Oh_. Logan’s mind calls up a story that has been all over the San Diego news for the last few weeks. A man was taken up by the San Diego police, not breathalyzed, and then released to drive himself home. He’d gotten into an accident on the way, killing himself and a young mother of twins.

Leo sighs. “You’re not being charged, though. You can call someone to come get you. It’ll stay strictly off the record.”

Logan thinks rapidly through his options. He could call Cheese or any of the guys, but that would exponentially increase chances of this incident getting out into the squad grapevine. He’s been frantically running through every piece of the UCMJ that he can remember and he doesn’t _think_ he can get into any real trouble for this as long as he’s not actually charged with anything, but he’s not really willing to risk it. Dick would be the ideal person to call in this situation, but he’s in Las Vegas at a Bonnie Deville show with a bunch of the 09er crowd. There’s no way he could get back in time to make any difference.

The solution is inevitable. “Will you let me go in the morning?”

Leo raises his brows. “Well, yeah. But you should really just call someone. You don’t want to spend the night in here, do you?”

_Nope. But I deserve to._

“I’m fine. Thanks.” Logan lounges back on the cot, trying to project complete and total comfort with his current circumstances.

“You’re, uh, seeing Veronica Mars, right?”

Logan sits up hurriedly, smacking his elbow on the metal bar of the bunk, his pretense of comfort forfeited in a blink.  “Yes, I am.” The _‘what’s it to you?’_ is implied.

“I thought I’d heard that. You don’t want to call her?”

He studies Leo uneasily. “She’s in New York.”

“Thought I’d heard that as well.” Leo nods, the side of his pursed lips quirking in a wry, comradely twist that Logan doesn’t quite know how to read. “Lieutenant Logan Echolls, US Navy, huh?”

"Lieutenant, Junior Grade. But yeah." Logan responds slowly and Leo shakes his head.

As he turns to leave, Leo taps the bar of the cell twice with the palm of his hand. “You’re a brave man, y’know.”

“Uh, thank you, but the troops on the ground are really more—“

Leo looks down and chuffs a laugh. “I was actually talking about dating Veronica.”

_____________

<< Sorry I missed your calls! >>   
Sun. Sept. 27, 2014, 3:01 am EST 

<< I have so much to tell you. >>   
Sun. Sept. 27, 2014, 3:02 am EST 

<< Call me as early as you can tomorrow. Or can we do our Sunday skype date? >>  
Sun. Sept. 27, 2014, 3:03 am EST    

_____________

 

Time drifts by uneasily after Leo leaves. Logan, miraculously still alone in the holding cell, tries to get comfortable on the cot. Tries not to imagine Veronica calling his confiscated cell phone and getting no answer. Tries not to imagine the look on his CO’s face if this ever comes out.

Logan likes his XO—Art ‘Stink’ Carruthers, the squad’s second in command—but the skipper is another story. James Quinn is a blowhard jerk with a talent for ass-kissing up the Navy chain of command and, worst of all to the aviators in the squadron, he’s merely an adequate flier. It is wryly acknowledged by all of Logan’s buddies that ‘Doctor’ is probably destined to be an Admiral one day. The sooner he rotates out of squadron command and Stink takes over the better, as far as Logan is concerned.

If there’s anything worse than getting dressed down, it’s getting dressed down by someone you don’t like or respect, but have to “Sir, yes sir,” to all the same.

Yep, there is definitely no one Logan would be more pleased to keep in the dark about this little incident than Commander Quinn.

That is, until he turns his head at the sound of footsteps in the corridor and spots Keith Mars leaning on the wall across from his cell, features fixed in his habitual look of grim disappointment.

_Fucking Leo._

_____________

 

The thirty-five minutes it takes to drive to Logan’s condo are some of the most awkward of his life. Slung into the passenger seat of Keith Mars’ Buick like the most unwanted of baggage— _it’s a miracle he didn’t make me ride in the back_ —and hauled home from the police station over his own protests.

Was there ever a truer sign that high school never actually ends?

“So, bar fights, huh?” Keith’s voice is soft, sliding in between his thoughts in a way that suggests a practiced interrogation technique. “You’re just lucky this didn’t happen in Neptune. You would have had to bribe your way out.”

Logan leans the side of his head against the cool glass of window. “Yeah, well. Small mercies.”

“Something you’re intimately familiar with, I suppose. How many arrests is this now with no jail time?”

 _Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you._ Logan breathes out slowly and straightens up in his seat, Navy parade rest. “I wasn’t arrested. I was detained.” 

“Mm.” The silence stretches out and then Keith sighs. “I’m sorry, Logan. I can see you’re already beating yourself up about this. I shouldn’t pile on.”

It sounds sincere enough, but experience has taught him that Keith Mars doesn’t cut him any breaks. Will never cut him any breaks. Logan tightens his grip on his emotions. He’s done enough damage already, tonight. “Listen, I know we’re not…I’m not in a position to ask you any favors, here, but please let _me_ tell Veronica about this.”

Keith nods, not in a yes-I-agree way, but more in a manner that indicates he’s processing the request. The lump in Logan’s throat grows as the wait stretches out.

Finally, Keith compresses his lips, “Veronica and I, we had a fight this summer; I don’t know if she told you?”

Logan thinks back. “Before the Family Day on the carrier?” Keith nods. “I figured it was something like that.”

Keith taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “She accused me of still thinking of her as nineteen.”

“Yeah. Was she wrong?”

“Yes, and no. I do still see her as nineteen. I also see her as two years old, and six, and… sixteen,” He doesn’t turn his head, or look at Logan, but the barb lands all the same.

“But she’s not.” Logan says, quietly. “Neither of us are.”

“No, you’re not. But here _you_ still are, beating people up in bars.”

 _So much for not piling on._ Logan’s jaw locks. Damned if he’ll defend himself to Keith Mars. Damned if he’ll explain himself to this self-rit— _aw, fuck it._

“Once. Once in the last seven years I have wound up in a police station. Just once. And the rest of the time I’m an officer in the goddamn Navy. Don’t you think—” Logan breaks off and massages the bridge of his nose with his fingers.

_God dammit. I was not going to do this again. Not going to try to explain something he’s never going to believe._

But still, he continues. “I know you don’t think I’m good enough for her.”

Keith shakes his head vehemently, eyes still fixed on the road. “It’s not about that…”

“If…this,” Logan jerks his chin to indicate the tension in the car, “isn’t about that, then…what!?” He clenches his fist. “Why are you so against me dating Veronica?”

______________

 

Keith glances over at his daughter’s boyfriend, whose erect posture is suggestive of a prisoner steeling himself against torture.

He’s spent the last year watching suspiciously for signs of the boy buried inside the man and now, practically for the first time, here they are. The palpable desperation and the waves of upset flooding off of him are classic teenage Logan.

And it’s talking about Veronica that brings it out. _Come on, Keith,_ w _hy is it so hard for you to see this kid as anything but a threat to her happiness?_

So fine then, they’ll have this conversation. “You want her back here, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. Don’t you?” Logan’s tone is cool and challenging, but it’s the remaining hint of underlying anxiety that makes Keith answer.

“Not if it’s bad for her. No I don’t. Do you really want to see her investigating cases again?”

Logan makes a frustrated noise. “Okay, taking it as a given that being back in Neptune automatically means going back to detecting - which is far from certain - I just want her to choose for herself. Choose what makes her happy.”

Happy. Keith scoffs mentally, “She already did that. She left Neptune. She chose law school. She chose New York and a normal life; she was happy.”

“Was?”

_Was. Is. That’s the problem, isn’t it Keith? You’ve made ‘happy’ your god and you don’t even know what it looks anymore._

Logan takes advantage of his silence to continue. “Maybe now she’s choosing differently.” It’s a quiet observation, but it strikes Keith like a blow.

With a deep exhale, he concedes, “And maybe that’s what _this_ ,” Keith imitates Logan’s earlier chin jerk, “is all about.”

Logan’s posture slumps a bit, out of the erect stance he has maintained since the conversation began. He’s clearly weary of the fight. Vulnerable. The cop in Keith knows that this is as good a chance as he’ll ever get to ask a question that has been gnawing at him for nearly ten years. “The night Cassidy blew up the plane. What exactly happened to Veronica on the roof?”

After that night, Veronica had stopped bringing her problems to him. He’d become more her roommate than her father. At the time, he’d convinced himself it was a natural result of her transition to college, but…

Logan is back to being fully upright. “You should ask Veronica.”

“I’m asking you.”

“Well I’m not going to talk about it.” Logan, sensing the underlying issue, continues defiantly, “I would never talk to you about _anything_ she didn’t want me to mention.”

Keith clenches his hands on the steering wheel. “What if she was in danger? What about then?”

“Maybe. But probably not; if she didn’t want me to. I’d try to get her to talk to you herself." Logan's tone is a little bleak and Keith suddenly remembers that Veronica had said he was worried about her leaving. "She’s an adult, and I trust her judgment.”

Keith nods. “I know you love her, Logan.” That has never been in doubt. 

“I do.”

_But love doesn’t buy happiness. Who knows that as well as I do?_

Logan turns his head to stare out the passenger side window, and it would be easy enough to conclude the conversation here. Just let it go. After all, aren’t relationships with sons-in-law supposed to be difficult? And, as much as Keith has wasted the past year hoping for a different outcome, it’s clear that that is the position Logan is in. Logan may still worry about Veronica leaving him, but Keith can't really see it happening. Not after the crash. Not after seeing the way his daughter looks at the unhappy man beside him. _You may not ever like it...but Veronica loves him. You want what’s best for her._

He lets the acknowledgement mentally sink in for a minute before continuing. “Look, I’ve got Veronica’s old dresser in my spare room and the varnish is peeling. I want to strip it down and repaint it, but I need to get it moved out of the room. I’d call Cliff, but last time he came over to help move something he drank all of my scotch and then complained about his sore back for a week afterwards.”

Keith stops and cuts his eyes sideways at Logan who realizes a little belatedly that he’s supposed to offer something in response.

“Oh, well, we’re on light duty for a few days. I could get a couple of the guys and we could come down. Take care of it easily.” Logan laughs bleakly, “They’d do it no problem. They love Veronica.”

“Thanks, but it’s really more of a two person job. Just the one dresser.”

“Um, okay. I could…”

“Monday morning at ten?”

“Sure.”

In a movie, this is where Keith would clap his daughter's boyfriend on the back and call him ‘son.’ Instead he reaches down and turns the radio on, and the dark strains of Led Zepplin fill the car. They both stare straight ahead, silent, for the rest of the short trip back to Logan’s condo.

_____________

 

The insistent dinging of the Skype chime on her laptop wakes Veronica up at around 5:30 on Sunday morning. The two and a half hours of sleep she’s gotten urge her to roll back over and ignore it, but there’s only really one person it could be and that’s not someone she wants to ignore.

She smacks the ‘answer’ button and grins into the camera, waiting as the picture resolves.

There he is.

“Hey sex—oh my god, you look _awful_.”

Logan’s chuckle sounds hollow through her laptop speakers. “Gee thanks, sweetie. It’s good to see you too.”

“Seriously Logan. It’s got to be what,” a wide yawn splits her face, “two-thirty there? What’s going on?”

“Veronica…”

She takes a second to study his face. He looks exhausted, rumpled, and hangdog desperate. That echo of fear that she hates so much is present in his eyes, screwing up her stomach like it always does. Against her will, she starts to get nervous. _What could he possibly have to tell me that’s that bad?_

“Just say it, Logan.”

“I got into a fight tonight. At a bar. I punched…a guy. I wasn’t arrested, but—“

Her slightly hysterical laughter interrupts his earnest explanation.

“Wait, Veronica, what’s so funny? I was in jail!”

She lets out a small hoot at his indignation, voice still shaking with chuckles. "Nothing…it’s just…I guess it's good to remember sometimes that you’re still you and I'm still me."

“Veronica, I’m exhausted. What on earth are you talking about?”

Her giggles die out and she reaches out her fingers to brush gently over the image of his stubbled cheek on her screen. “It’s such a long story. It’ll wait until tomorrow. Are you okay?”

“Oh god.” He runs a hand over his face. “Leo called your dad to pick me up the station.”

She actually gasps out loud and brings the laptop closer to her face, peering as though searching for some detail. “You don’t _look_ dead.”

“Har har. Very funny. It was brutal actually.”

“What, you guys didn’t have a big heart-to-heart where you worked out all of your differences?” She tosses her hands up in mock despair.  “Are all of the Lifetime movies a lie?”

He groans and rests his forehead in hands. “Yes? No. I don’t even know, honestly. I’ve been drafted for some manual labor involving your old dresser on Monday.”

“Ooh, manual labor. A true sign of affection in the Mars clan.”

He raises his head and gives her a weary smirk. Weak though it is, she can feel the effect down to her toes.

“Baby, I’ll hang your shelves any day.”

“Oh, now that’s just sad. Even your innuendo makes no sense. You really _do_ need some sleep.”

He nods a little. "Veronica, I had a really shitty day today. I know its morning there, but…would you take me to bed with you?"

She smiles. “Yeah, okay.”

Veronica unplugs the laptop and walks back over to her bed. Setting the computer down on the side of the bed that butts up against the wall, she crawls in under the covers with a groan, and props her head up on the pillow so that she can still see the screen.

On his end of the line, Logan has gone into the bedroom of his condo. The image shakes as he set his computer down and the bottom of Veronica’s screen fills with the familiar cool blue of the sheets on his bed. Logan disappears off screen briefly and when he comes back, he’s stripped down to his boxers.

_Yum._

He climbs into bed and rolls over so that his face fills her screen. “Hey.”

“Hey.” She blinks sleepily at him. “Go to sleep now, hm?”

He nods. “Veronica, tell me something happy.”

“Happy, eh?” She thinks for a minute, watching his face, serious and intent, “Did you know that there’s an island in Japan that is entirely populated by tame bunnies?”

He snorts.

“It’s true. _And_ , did you further know that a group of bunnies is collectively referred to as a fluffle?”

He smiles and God, are his eyes gorgeous and warm. “I’m glad to see all of that law school learnin’ is being put to good use.”

“Hey, it’s said that bunnies are especially adept at swaying juries.”

He’s still chuckling when she falls asleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may have guessed, I have vastly over-simplified the process of getting a PI’s license in New York for the purposes of the story. 
> 
> Multiple, multiple many thanks to **marshmallowtasha** , the best darn beta there is, for kindly reading this chapter over and over. Words cannot express how much I appreciate her!


	7. October, 2014

**October, 2014**

 

Logan wakes up in Veronica’s minuscule bed, alone. He frowns into the shaft of mid-morning sun glaring in his eyes and rolls over, scanning the small studio apartment.

He’d gotten in to New York City late last night after stealing an impulsive long weekend for a quick visit to see Veronica. She had met him at the airport and they’d spent the balance of the evening in extremely pleasurable ways. That general exhaustion, combined with jet lag and the time difference, have him feeling a little groggy despite the sleep he’s gotten.

The apartment is quiet. He runs a hand over his face, frowning.

“Veronica?” Just as he calls her name, though, he spots her. She’s sitting in the living room area, cross-legged on the floor, wedged in-between the couch and the coffee table, with a stack of papers and some books spread out on the surface in front of her.

She twists her upper torso around to look at him, a soft smile on her face. “Hey, are you up?”

“I will be if you come back to bed.”

She groans. “I need about an hour more, Logan. Why don’t you go back to sleep?”

Instead, Logan rolls out of bed, stepping into his boxers and heading over to where his girlfriend is sitting. He perches on the arm of the couch and peers over her shoulder at her notes.

“Whatever happened to 3L-O-L?” He pronounces each letter with deliberate emphasis and is rewarded by a snort of laughter from Veronica.

“Ah, my poor misguided man. Third year ennui doesn’t mean I don’t have to do _anything_ ; it just means I’ve gotten smart about what I do have to do. Hours of nightly reading? Not so much. Cramming with these excellent outlines the week before the final? Sadly so.”

“The final is on Wednesday?”

“Yeah. Eight week class. If I’d known sooner that you were coming this weekend I would have started earlier, but…”

He smiles at her a little sheepishly. “Sorry, I know it was short notice. I just…”

She stretches up and gives him a quick kiss on the mouth. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“But you need to study?”

She smiles tiredly at him. “Yeah.”

Logan leans over to read the title at the top of the printed outline pages. “Professional Responsibility Issues in Business Practices. That’s the class?”

“Yup.”

“Sounds scintillating.”

“Oh, it is _beyond_.”

He chuckles at her dry tone and presses a kiss to the side of her forehead. “Okay, study good.”

Leaving her with her notes, he walks back over to his Navy rucksack, pressed into service as an overnight bag. Rummaging around inside, he pulls on a pair of old sweatpants and a t-shirt, then grabs a sheaf of papers in a manila folder.

Logan tosses the papers onto the small counter that divides the kitchen space from the rest of the room, and cranks up a pot of coffee. When the brew is done, he fixes a mug for Veronica, strong and sweet, and sets it next to her. Accepting her distracted “thanks” in response, he grabs his own coffee and papers and eases himself onto the couch behind her. He stretches out, propping his feet on the opposite end of the couch so that his calf just grazes the back of her shoulders.

“Am I okay here?”

She nods and then leans her head back to rest lightly against his leg for a brief second.

Logan smiles and scoots the small lamp to the back of the couch’s end table with his elbow so that he can stack his discarded pages there. He’s flipped through his top three sheets when Veronica’s voice breaks his concentration.

“What’s that?”

“This?” He points at the papers on his lap. “Line Division stuff.” Veronica is twisted around and looking at him with interest, so he continues. “Two of our Plane Captains are promoting out this month and we need to get new ones in before our next training cruise. We’ve got a bunch of candidates in our guys who are new to the squad. Some of their screening results came in on Friday morning and I really should have looked at them then, but I was eager to get going.” He quirks an eyebrow at her. “I brought this for some reading on the plane but wound up falling asleep instead.”

She smiles a little at him. “How diligent, Officer.”

“My middle name.”

Logan is still smiling as he bows his head back to his work.

Forty-five minutes pass relatively peacefully and Logan thinks he’s settled on at least one of his choices. He can’t help glancing up at Veronica every so often, though. Each time he does, she looks more and more frustrated and unhappy.

He’s seen her laser focused on something that interests her more times than he can count, and that is definitely not what he’s witnessing now.

By the time he’s finished reading his last report, she is openly letting out small moans of discontent and propping her eyes open by dint of pressing her fingertips against her eyebrows.

_To hell with this._

Logan sighs, tossing the last of his papers to the side. “Remind me again why you’re taking these classes?”

 

__________________

 

It’s been a tiring morning. Veronica had snuck out of bed nearly four hours ago, determined to get her necessary studying in while Logan slept off his flight. The previous night had been long on celebratory sexcapades and short on actual sleep, and the hours of drilling facts about client confidentiality precedents and conflict rules haven’t exactly been restful.

So, rather than engage on the subject of her course schedule— _my own damn business_ , she thinks fiercely—Veronica gets up from her cross-legged position and heads to the kitchenette.

Several creaky steps, with a brief stop to shake her legs out, take her to the refrigerator, where she pulls out eggs and milk and a large bell pepper.

“Omelet?” She asks cheerfully, “I know it’s basically the afternoon, but I’m in the mood for breakfast.”

Logan regards her from his position on the couch with a frustrated head tilt.

 _Please just let this go._ Veronica ducks her head back into the refrigerator and roots around, grabbing a tomato on the verge of mushiness and some mushrooms that don’t look _too_ old.

Head still safe in the sanctuary, she calls, “I’ve got cheddar and swiss.  What do you want?” At the ominous silence from behind her, she exhales harshly and snags both blocks of cheese.

Sure enough, when Logan’s voice sounds again, it is much closer. He’s moved over to sit on one of the stools at the small counter that serves to divide the kitchenette from the rest of the studio apartment.

“Veronica, I want to talk about this.”

“Well,” she straightens up and snaps the refrigerator door shut, “I don’t.”

“Why not? You can’t tell me you _like_ these classes.”

She gives him a glare and bends down to grab the cheese grater from the cupboard below the counter.

Logan raps the counter-top three times with his knuckles in obvious frustration. “I don’t get why it is such a big deal to talk about this. All I asked was why you’re taking those classes anyway; you hate them!”

His determination to keep pushing the issue— _ruining my morning—_ gives her a tight, hot uncomfortable feeling in her chest, like a too-big lump of peanut butter swallowed quickly.

She smacks a block of cheese down on the counter. “Law school doesn’t pay for itself, Logan.”

“I know that.”

“No,” she starts to grate the cheddar forcefully onto a plate. “You don’t.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s—no.” She puts the cheese down. Picks it back up. “It’s nothing.”

He pushes off of the stool and comes around the counter toward her, hand outstretched, but Veronica holds the cheese grater up in an arresting gesture. “Don’t.”

Logan backs up instead, leaning on the wall about four feet away from her. She can see him fighting to keep the tension out of his body. “It’s not nothing! What did you mean, Veronica?”

She grates more vigorously, expelling a frustrated grunt and blowing a puff of air upward to move the strands of hair straggling into her face. “It’s just—“

“Just that I’m a spoiled rich brat with no concept of money?”

Dropping her shoulders, she looks at him disgustedly. “Jesus, Logan. No.”

He looks a little shamefaced and his stance relaxes. “Sorry.” He pauses for a moment, collecting himself, while Veronica shakes the remaining cheese strands from the grater and uses the flat edge of her hand to scrape them into a pile. When his voice comes again, it is quiet. Damn him. “What did you mean, then, Veronica?”

“I _meant_ that…” She trails off and the silence thickens. “I don’t even really know, Logan. I just wish you would stop questioning my choice of classes.”

“But you _hate_ them.”

“You don’t have to _like_ everything you do. Sometimes it’s about,” Veronica squishes a wayward strand of cheese between her fingertip and the smooth surface of the cutting board, “…being practical.”

“Practical.” He returns the word flatly and there’s that lump behind her sternum again.

“I need these classes if I want to work in any sort of lucrative Big Law practice.” It is a straightforward argument, and one she’s made both to him and to herself dozens of times, but this time he doesn’t let it go.

“Well, why do that?”

“I don’t know, Logan.” She turns around, grabs two eggs from the carton, and forcefully cracks them into a small bowl. “Why did you take that test you were whining about last week?”

He sighs. “That was a screening. I want to move over to Airframe division officer when Scooby promotes next. I needed those test results in my file.”

“Well, did you _like_ taking the test?”

“No.”

Veronica shrugs. “So. You did it because you had to.” She’s staring down at the faux-wood grain of the cutting board.

“It’s different, Veronica. I may not have liked taking that test, but I do like my job and I want to work my way up in the department.”

“Yeah, well I want to work my way up in the Corporate Law world.”

 _Whisk. I should get the whisk,_ she thinks, but she doesn’t move. She’s rooted to the floor.

“Come on, Veronica. No you don’t.” Logan’s voice is maddeningly patient. Like she’s a five year old insisting on cake for dinner.  

Aaand there’s the anger to get her feet unstuck.

“Where the hell do you get off saying that?” Veronica straightens up quickly, pushing away from the counter hard enough that the abandoned bowl of eggs makes a _tit-tit-tit_ sound as it shivers against the laminate.

Logan, who she has been deliberately not watching, has moved away from the wall, closing the distance between them slightly.  “I know you, Veronica. I know you and you do _not_ want to be a corporate lawyer.”

“I _want_ to be able to pay my damn loans comfortably, Logan.” She comes forward a step into his space. “To stand on my own two feet. To not have to borrow plane ticket money every time I want to come see you.”

“Veronica…fuck.” Logan runs his fingers through his short hair. “Money.”

“Yes, money.” She lets the word sit for a minute. “It matters. I don’t want to always be scraping. Beholden.”

There is a sudden change in the tension between them, almost palpable. Logan sags sharply back against the wall. “Veronica,” he asks, his face stark white, “are you planning to break up with me?”

“What?” Veronica throws her hands up in frustration, the sick knot in her chest growing in size by the minute. “No, Logan! Why the hell would you ask that? No!”

“Because, if we’re going to be together, why the hell would you worry about money? You know I have more than enough to take ca—“

He breaks off at the look on her face which, judging from how fiery-hot her skin feels, must be truly a sight to behold. The Navy sure hasn’t trained the reckless out of him, though, because he continues.

“It feels like you’re making plans for a future that doesn’t involve me. It feels like you’re planning to leave.”

And just like that, the ground has shifted under her and they’re having a whole new fight. And now, oh now, she is _furious._

Veronica shakes her head, takes one glance at the mess of food strewn over the counter next to her and thinks, _fuck it_. “You can make your own damn breakfast. I’m going out for a run.”

“Don’t fucking leave, Veronica.”

“I’m not _leaving_. I’m going for a run.”

“Don’t.” He’s right there and he’s not moving out of her way, blocking her into the little space behind the counter, just by breathing, just by being. She absolutely can not let him touch her right now.

“Just. Get _off of me_ , Logan. I just need to get out for a little while, okay?”

She pushes past him and he reaches out, fingers grazing her wrist like he wants to grasp it but won’t. She whirls around. “We’ve been together for over a year, Logan. A year!”

He’s looking at her, mouth working, silent. And fuck the look in his eyes. Fuck it right into the ground. “And I’m not going to reassure you any more, so don’t even think about giving me that kicked puppy look.”

She can see the words ‘kicked puppy’ hit him hard and go bouncing around the room, stirring up echoes she hadn’t mean to invoke. With a slight wince she starts to move toward him, intending to say…what, she’s not sure.

But he straightens up before she gets there, smiling a smile that is not a smile. A perverse laugh titters out. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Are my abandonment issues making it hard to fight with me? You want to run away like your mom?”

Veronica reels back, shocked, and set her jaw against the trembling that’s threatening. “Seriously? Fuck you, Logan.” Her voice is shaky and weak and it amps her anger up even more to hear it. “I honestly never thought you’d stoop to using that against me in a fight. Well, congratulations.” She spits the last out like an epithet.

“Shit, Veronica.” His eyes are wide and horrified now. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…”

But she knows exactly where his comment came from and an apology isn’t going to fix it, not at this point. This is deeper and she’s ignored it for too long. Veronica moves swiftly until she’s right up against him, right in his space where he can hear her quiet words. “Logan, when you wanted to go back to flying after the accident you told me…” she swallows, “…you told me you couldn’t fly scared. Well right now in this relationship you're flying scared and it doesn't work. It’s not working.”

Logan looks like he’s been poleaxed. All of the tension goes out of his body and his knees buckle under him, sending him sliding down the wall to sit on the floor.  

Veronica turns on her heel. Marching back to the bedroom area, she snags her running shoes and tugs them on with angry jerks. She looks down at herself briefly. The yoga pants and tank top she’s wearing will have to do.  

She comes back to see Logan still sitting on the ground, his head bent, elbows propped on his knees and hands hanging desolate and empty. He doesn’t move or look up at her when she approaches. She grabs his overnight bag and tosses it at him. He flinches slightly as the corner clips his shoulder, but doesn’t raise his head.

“Put your shoes on. I still need a run.”

 ______________

 

This is a bad one.

Veronica remembers how this kind of fight feels—the anger and helplessness—but she’s lost the ability to ignore it. Their adult selves don’t fight nearly as much as their teen counterparts did and, when they do, it rarely cuts as close to the bone as this argument.

Running along the streets of Morningside Heights, she can’t hear Logan, not over the volume of her music or the thrum of blood through her body, but she can sense him just behind her, keeping pace.

He’s pissed too, she knows, and frustrated, and scared. But she’s not in the mood to be charitable or to apologize just yet.

Veronica needed this run, genuinely needed to set her body free and turn her mind off. To wipe everything away and erase how her lazy Saturday morning suddenly morphed into a five-alarm-critical fight. Unfortunately it’s not working as well as she’d have hoped.

Nearly two miles into the run and Veronica’s brain is still busy. She’s managed to come up with at least three really excellent retorts to jabs that Logan didn’t make. _But could have_.

She’s thought about the way he leaves his damn luggage all over her apartment every single time he comes to visit, and how much of a hot water hog he is, and how stupid his face looks when he leans toward the mirror to check his pores.

_Vain asshole._

And damn him and his fears. How can he still think she’d leave? After all of this time. After the hospital.

That thought sends her into a rage spiral that lasts until her playlist clicks over to the next song. She tries to lose herself in the rhythm, the beat.

No good.

Another mile; Logan’s presence still behind her, beside her, reminding her of how hard he tries; all the time trying so hard. In the month since the bar fight, he’s been over to her father’s house twice for various home improvement projects. The few times she’s asked how it’s going, Logan just shakes the topic off, but she knows it can’t be easy.

She can’t help thinking about him on the carrier this summer; confidence and excitement and competence on display.

Or about the underway date for his next deployment—rapidly approaching but still unknown—and how much she hopes they’ll get another Christmas together.

But then, again, there is how goddamn pissed it makes her every time they fight and she catches fear in his eyes.

 _It’s not fair. Not fair._  

Fresh anger animates Veronica’s body, and her feet slap the pavement extra hard in time to the music pounding through her earbuds.

And finally, almost five miles in, she reaches the point in the run where she’s all thought out. Where her world is nothing but breathing in and out, and muscles firing, and pain, and adrenaline, and the indistinct blur of Logan, just visible in the corner of her peripheral vision, running next to her.

____________

 

Logan is running full out but he can’t seem to leave himself behind.

_She’s right. She’s fucking right. I am flying scared._

And he brought up her mom. _Shit shit shit._ Going to have to do some serious groveling there. And where did that even _come from_ anyway, because he doesn’t believe even slightly that Veronica is anything like her useless mother. But _she_ does. And he knows it.

It pisses him off, tears him up inside, how he can be this got-it-together adult one minute. Proud. Career track. Doing paperwork. Happy and relatively well-adjusted. And then the next he’s five years old and watching the heels of his mother’s stilettos retreat out of the room. Nineteen and hearing “out of my life forever” echo constantly in his head like a sick refrain.

He’s dealt with all of this, dammit, he’s dealt with it so many times. He knows, knows, knows, knows Veronica isn’t going to leave him. Not because they fight, anyway. She loves him.

_But…_

She’s running ahead of him at a fast pace, and Logan matches it without much thought, staying slightly behind and to the left of her, keeping her always in his vision.

Like some sort of dog. _Kicked puppy._ She didn’t mean it like that, he knows, he could see it on her face the minute it left her lips. Logan speeds up so that he is running next to her. She doesn’t look at him, doesn’t turn her head in his direction, but adjusts her rhythm slightly to match his, so that they hurtle along through the city side by side.

The run is working its magic, a little at least. He can feel things unknotting inside of him, irrational fear falling away and leaving behind anger at himself and frustration with her.

She may be right about some things, but she’s damn well not right about everything. She does hate those classes and she will wither away if she forces herself into corporate law.

 _Give her time_.

And it’s not his fault that she has all of these weird bourgeoisie hang-ups about money. Like it’s the root of all evil instead of just…grease. Lubricant in a world that is all too often sticky and clogged.

 _Give her space_.

Logan drops back again and allows her to pull forward. He runs for a moment staring almost unseeingly at the back of her shoulder, where muscles bunch and clench as she swings her arms in time with her stride. When he eventually turns wordlessly to start the long loop back to her apartment she turns with him although she can’t possibly see him, quietly in sync.

______________

 

By some sort of mutual agreement, neither speaks as they reach the lobby of Lenfast and ride the elevator together back to Veronica’s apartment.

Veronica’s mouth feels heavy with unsaid words but if she opens it she’s not sure what will come out.

She’s pissed as hell.  

God, she loves him so much.

They both toe out of their sneakers by the door and Veronica heads like a homing bird back to her sanctuary, the bathroom, while Logan trails after her. Once inside, she strips silently and, at her nod, he does the same. They don’t touch.

With her eyes, Veronica directs him into the small shower stall before entering herself and bending to turn the water on, adjusting the temperature until it is nearly scalding, the sting reddening her skin in a painfully pleasurable way. Logan stands, dumb, at the back of the stall.

“Turn around,” she orders, her voice bouncing harshly in the echo chamber of the shower, and he turns with some difficulty as she maneuvers him into the stream of the water. He braces his hands against the tile and Veronica grabs the loofah from its hook, squeezes out some body wash, and begins gently soaping up his back. Logan groans, leaning forward to rest his forehead against the cool tile wall.

“I’m still mad at you,” she says quietly into the streams of hot water pouring over both of them.

He nods, a small contraction of his neck muscles. “Me too.”

His body is quiet, skin flushing as she passes the loofah back and forth, carefully keeping her touch sponge-on-skin rather than flesh to flesh. Tenderness and anger twine in a Gordian knot in the pit of her stomach.

Low down on Logan’s back, above his right hip, is a patch of irregular skin the size of her palm, slightly rough and crisscrossed with a web of thin, fading purple scars—a memento of the crash. Veronica remembers changing the bandages while he was in rehab. Remembers the ugly, weeping scab. _It’s amazing how much of a difference a year can make._

She scrubs ever-widening circles across the broad span of his shoulders, rinsing away the sweat and the anger, increasing the pressure until he arcs his back into her.  Finally, she lays one soapy hand against the back of his neck and his muscles jump at the contact. Veronica closes her eyes, searching for words.

“You know…we’re a couple.” Quiet. Breathe in. Water shushing down. “Couples fight. Just because I’m mad doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere.”

Logan bangs his forehead lightly against the wall. “I _know_ , Veronica. I know I’m being stupid. I tell myself all the time. I try so hard to fight against it, I just…”

She runs the loofah down the deep groove of his spine, leaving a foamy trail that almost immediately dissipates into the water.

“Maybe…maybe you could stop trying so hard and just…” her voice seems to slide away with the bubbles, almost inaudible against the rushing sounds of the shower, “…believe.”

A shudder runs down Logan’s body and he dips his head under the shower stream. He turns around abruptly, water running down his face in rivulets, darkening his hair, flowing across the angles and planes of his face. He locks eyes with her and his throat works as he searches her desperately.

After a long moment, he puts out his hands and skims them tentatively down the sides of her body, only touching her with his fingertips, never looking away. When he finally speaks, his voice is low and raw. “Okay.” He says. And then, after a small nod, “Okay,” again. 

The loofah falls from Veronica’s hand, landing near her foot with a wet plop.

“I’m sorry, Veronica. I’m so sorry…what I said…”

But she doesn’t want to hear it; words aren’t what she wants right now. Not how she needs to feel him. Veronica crashes her body into his, wet flesh slapping wet flesh. She presses forward and he instinctively stoops his taller body to allow her to seize his mouth with ferocity, all teeth and edges.

He moans and meets her assault with an urgency of his own, licking into her, his tongue probing deep. Water pounds down on them, it’s in her face, her eyes, her ears, making her world muzzy, and in her mouth, sneaking in through the cracks of their kiss, and she’s drowning in it. Him.

Logan’s hands are working up and down her body, grasping, kneading like he’s trying to find a way to unzip her and climb in. She rubs herself against muscles and skin, the firm miracle of his body, and she’s slick everywhere, catching fire at the feel of him hot and hard against her belly. It’s too much. It’s not enough.

“In, now. In me.”

Logan spins them around, pressing her body against the tiles with a wet squeak, cool ceramic and coarse grout on her skin. Hitching her up, Logan runs his hands under her thighs, spreading her. With a sudden rough jerk he’s inside, thick and hard. Veronica’s mouth falls open in a silent ‘O’ at the sensation.

There is an infinitesimal moment of adjustment, where movement stills and their eyes meet. Veronica’s inner muscles contract, accepting the invasion. As he starts to move, Logan groans, the sound escalating oddly into a high-pitched and distinctly un-sexy _‘eeugh.’_   

At first Veronica is confused, but then Logan shifts instinctively away from the source of his discomfort and she gets hit in the face with a blast of the suddenly icy shower water.

It should be funny. It should break the mood, but instead she just feels like she’s going to cry. Hot and desperate and tight. She needs to show him and this is just getting in the way.

Logan clasps her in close to his body and tries to slide them out the spray, but the shower stall is too small for them to escape it entirely. Neither of them seems capable of the level of thought required to disengage and turn the water off. Veronica nudges her body forward against his in a wordless entreaty— _get us out of here_ —and he struggles to comply. Competing sensations rack her body; frigid water hitting her skin and Logan nudging deep inside of her as he maneuvers them, still connected, out of the shower.  

Just as they finally make it out of the stall, he accidentally slips out of her and they both groan in frustration. Her quiet but fierce, “No,” echoes against the walls of the bathroom and Logan spins clumsily, drunkenly, and deposits her on the edge of the small pedestal sink before sliding back home with a sloppy thrust.

Veronica’s ass slides down into the sink as he starts to move frantically, seeking completion, oblivion, absolution. But it’s not right.

_Show him._

She wraps her legs around his thighs and tightens her grip on his hips, nails digging into the flesh of his ass, forcing him to stop his thrusting.

Logan looks down at her, questioning, desperate, and she holds his gaze as she starts to bring herself up, thrusting onto him with deliberation, controlling the motion. Controlling him.

“I’ve got you, Logan.” _Trust me._

Emotions swirl in his eyes—acceptance and love and lust and something that looks a little like relief—and he gives himself over to her, letting Veronica guide herself up and down while he remains still. She can feel him straining against her, leashing the natural urge to move. Their eyes are locked and the eye contact is so intense, so goddamn intense, that it almost overwhelms all of the other sensations flooding through her body. She has to look away. She can’t look away.

Her position is insanely awkward for this kind of motion, and the faucet is jabbing her in the back, but somehow that just makes it even hotter and her thrusts pick up and her pants start to turn into words. With each slap of flesh on flesh she is grunting, “Logan” and, “never getting rid of me” and, “staying right here.”

His chest is working like a bellows, big deep breaths as she torques her hips violently up and out of the sink. Seeking more friction, more connection, more…something, she pulls her calf up to rest against his shoulder and the stretch and burn of the new angle almost does it for her right there.

She’s working herself on him and chanting, “I’m here, right here, right here, always, right here.”

“Veronica,” he moans; plea and prayer and praise.

 _Yes._ She’s there.

“I need you, Logan.” It’s an animalistic growl. “Make me come.”

Released, he slams into her hard, once, twice, reaching down frantically to brush his fingers across where she is open and vulnerable.

She arcs her pelvis into him, her head banging back against the mirror and she doesn’t feel it, doesn’t care.

When she comes back down, he is cradling her against his chest, still hard inside of her, face buried against her neck.  

_____________

 

Sex, with Veronica, is always intensely something. Intensely passionate; intensely funny, sometimes; intensely right; even intensely sad, on occasion, right before they separate.

This was… His fingertip traces an idle pattern in the slick sweat at the small of her back.

“Veronica?”

“Mmm?”

“I’m not mad any more.”

She smiles into his skin. “Go to sleep, Logan.”

And he does, plastered against her, heart beating, body an all over tremble, so exhausted that for once he doesn't mourn as the world, and Veronica, slide away. 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, as always, to the inimitable **marshmallowtasha** , who never fails to steer me in the right direction!


	8. December, 2014

<< Veronica, I swear I’m not going to survive fifteen more months under this guy. >>  
Wed. Oct. 15, 2014, 6:47 pm PDT

<< Stink again? >>  
Wed. Oct. 15, 2014, 9:47 pm EST

<< Yes! >>  
Wed. Oct. 15, 2014, 6:47 pm PDT

<< Today he made the whole maintenance department go back and recheck that every single piece of paperwork we’ve signed off on for the last SIX MONTHS had the correct date on it >>  
Wed. Oct. 15, 2014, 6:48 pm PDT

<< All because apparently someone in another squad’s Ops department made a mistake>>  
Wed. Oct. 15, 2014, 6:48 pm PDT

<< Aw, consider your back patted sympathetically >>  
Wed. Oct. 15, 2014, 9:49 pm EST

<< EVERY PIECE  >>  
Wed. Oct. 15, 2014, 6:50 pm PDT

<< Poor baby.  >>  
Wed. Oct. 15, 2014, 9:50 pm EST

<< Do you have any idea how many forms that is? >>  
Wed. Oct. 15, 2014, 6:51 pm PDT

<< Okay, you’re talking to a girl who just spent five hours reading oil law precedents from the 1800s >>  
Wed. Oct. 15, 2014, 9:53 pm EST

<< Now you can consider your back patted condescendingly>>  
Wed. Oct. 15, 2014, 9:53 pm EST

<< I always know where to go for loving comfort >>  
Wed. Oct. 15, 2014, 6:54 pm PDT

<< The corner of 34th and Vine? >>  
Wed. Oct. 15, 2014, 9:55 pm EST

 

**_______________**

 

<< LOGAN! >>  
Mon. Oct. 27, 2014, 2:15 pm EST

<< Logan logan logan logan logan! >>  
Mon. Oct. 27, 2014, 2:18 pm EST

<< What’s wrong!? >>  
Mon. Oct. 27, 2014, 11:19 am PDT

<< What’s happening? Call me right now. >>  
Mon. Oct. 27, 2014, 11:19 am PDT

<< I’m calling you >>  
Mon. Oct. 27, 2014, 11:21 am PDT

<< No no >>  
Mon. Oct. 27, 2014, 2:21 pm EST

<< Nothing bad >>  
Mon. Oct. 27, 2014, 2:22 pm EST

<< It just belatedly occurred to me that your two best friends’ names are Dick…and Cheese. Thoughts? >>  
Mon. Oct. 27, 2014, 2:23 pm EST

<< Oh, come on Logan. That’s funny. >>  
Mon. Oct. 27, 2014, 2:25 pm EST

<< Logan? >>  
Mon. Oct. 27, 2014, 2:29 pm EST

 

**_______________**

 

<< Hey dollface. >>  
Thurs. Nov. 13, 2014, 4:02 pm PDT

<< More studying tonight? >>  
Thurs. Nov. 13, 2014, 4:02 pm PDT

<< Case work, actually. >>  
Thurs. Nov. 13, 2014, 7:03 pm EST

<< The same one as last week, or a new one? >>  
Thurs. Nov. 13, 2014, 4:04 pm PDT

<< New one. Hazel’s roommate. Thinks her fiancé is cheating. >>  
Thurs. Nov. 13, 2014, 7:06 pm EST

<< I’m going to follow him, see if I can get some shots>>  
Thurs. Nov. 13, 2014, 7:06 pm EST

<< They’re starting to stack up, huh? That’s three this month. >>  
Thurs. Nov. 13, 2014, 4:08 pm PDT

<< Yep. >>  
Thurs. Nov. 13, 2014, 7:12 pm EST

<< Oh! Did I tell you Carrie Bishop is giving a show on campus next week? >>  
Thurs. Nov. 13, 2014, 7:12 pm EST

<< Some sort of post-rehab comeback thing. >>  
Thurs. Nov. 13, 2014, 7:13 pm EST

<< Ah, high school. >>  
Thurs. Nov. 13, 2014, 4:14 pm PDT

<< I know, right? >>  
Thurs. Nov. 13, 2014, 7:15 pm EST

 

**_______________**

 

<< Heading out to meet Dick at the 09er tonight >>  
Fri. Nov. 15, 2014, 8:02 pm PDT

<< He insists he needs a wingman >>  
Fri. Nov. 15, 2014, 8:02 pm PDT

<< I think he just wants an alibi in case the same thing happens as last time. >>  
Fri. Nov. 15, 2014, 8:04 pm PDT

<< Wish you were here. What are you up to? >>  
Fri. Nov. 15, 2014, 8:05 pm PDT

<< image.txt >>  
_**Multimedia Message**  
Fri. Nov. 15, 2014, 11:10 pm EST_

<< Is that…the outfit I got you last Christmas? >>  
Fri. Nov. 15, 2014, 8:12 pm PDT

<< Yup. >>  
Fri. Nov. 15, 2014, 11:12 pm EST

<< I’m staying in tonight. Want to Skype? >>  
Fri. Nov. 15, 2014, 8:13 pm PDT

 

**_______________**

 

<< Can I ask you a favor? >>  
Wed. Nov. 19, 2014, 11:56 am EST

<< Does it involve dead bodies? >>  
Wed. Nov. 19, 2014, 8:57 am PDT

<< Nope. >>  
Wed. Nov. 19, 2014, 11:58 am EST

<< Okay then, shoot. >>  
Wed. Nov. 19, 2014, 9:00 am PDT

<< Wait, are you saying you wouldn’t do me a favor if it involved dead bodies? >>  
Wed. Nov. 19, 2014, 12:01 pm EST

<< … >>  
Wed. Nov. 19, 2014, 9:02 am PDT

**_______________**

 

<< Veronica, give me a call as soon as you can. >>  
Mon. Nov. 24, 2014, 5:01 pm PDT

<< We just found out our underway date for the deployment. >>  
Mon. Nov. 24, 2014, 5:03 pm PDT

<< Call me. >>  
Mon. Nov. 24, 2014, 5:05 pm PDT

 

**_______________**

Logan leaves for a six month deployment—his first since the crash—on December 19th. Just six days before Christmas.

“The Navy really is sadistic, isn’t it?”

Logan sprawls heavily on the couch, wriggling his socked feet until they’re comfortably trapped between Veronica and the cushions. “No argument here.”

He’s just finished telling her about Frenchie’s young daughter who had apparently sobbed uncontrollably for whole afternoon after learning that ‘Daddy wasn’t going to be there for Santa.’

“Six.” Logan mutters, “It’s a tough age. Old enough to understand what’s happening, but too young to be reasoned with.”

_I’m not sure reason makes this any better._

Veronica, at least, has options other than bursting into tears. She’d finished her last final on the 15th and immediately hopped on a plane for California.

Logan, in his pre-deployment “stand-down” period and with plenty of free time for once, had picked her up at the airport and they’ve basically retreated into their own little cocoon of coupledom.

The condo feels strangely like it has been on pause since she left at the end of the summer. Logan hasn’t gotten rid of or moved anything she left behind. Half–empty bottles of her shampoo and conditioner are still in the shower caddy, her summer weight dresses hang in the closet, and there’s a slightly dusty bottle of the blush wine only she drinks still in the wine rack.  

Although Frenchie’s daughter might not have been comforted by the idea of an early Christmas celebration, Veronica is fully willing to believe that Santa could come early when he needed to, and she and Logan had decided to do a quiet celebration at the condo – just the two of them – on the night before he left.

They make plans lazily, between rounds of lovemaking. Well, lovemaking and a little bickering. Veronica can’t seem to find her footing; vacillating between clingy sappiness and instantaneous snappish annoyance. One moment wanting nothing more than to cuddle in bed, the next feeling almost unbearably suffocated, dancing away from Logan to go grocery shopping or—in an odd move—scrub the bathroom tiles. Between the two emotional extremes, the time flew quickly and before long it was the morning of the eighteenth.

Time for Christmas.

_Sort of._

Veronica had decided during one of her manic bouts to test her cooking skills—developed in high school by necessity rather than desire, and rusty from years of college related dining hall and take-out dependency—with a small standing prime rib roast and a few relatively simple sides. Logan’s contribution to the festivities, a little to her surprise, is to decorate.

Last year, Christmas had come while Logan was still recovering, and he had limited the condo’s decorations to a simple tree. This year, the morning Veronica arrived, he'd snuck out while she was still zonked out from the flight and returned an hour later with his arms full of potted poinsettias and a plastic bag bulging with boxes of twinkle lights dangling from the crook of his elbow.

The morning of their Christmas celebration, while Veronica is busy doing early dinner prep, Logan starts to put everything up. He doesn’t go too whole hog—the lack of years of built up decorations definitely shows—but by the time Veronica wanders out of the kitchen that afternoon, having just put the roast in, the spacious condo has taken on a decided air of Christmas cheer.

Logan, meanwhile, is balancing precariously on the arm of the couch, his body arced forward in a seemingly unsustainable position to sling a loop of twinkle lights over the edge of a high decorative shelf.

Veronica can’t help her startled exclamation. “Yikes! Hey there stunt man, you need a hand with that?” She moves to stand under him, not sure exactly what she’s poised to do. _Catch him?_  “Of course. If you’re looking for a plausible but non-life threatening injury to keep you off of that floating”— _death trap_ —“tin can…”

He bites his lip, one palm braced against the wall to keep himself in place, “Could you just feed me a little more…”

She picks up the clump of lights from the couch and untangles enough to give Logan some slack. He succeeds in snagging the lights securely and hops back down to the ground with practiced ease.

Veronica shakes her head. “The world is just your jungle gym, isn’t it?”

He does a hopping two-step shuffle, “Like a cat.”

She rolls her eyes; the only possible response. “Okay, Tigger, the roast is in and it needs—” Veronica cuts off when her phone emits its email chime from deep within her pocket. “Um, it needs two and a half hours,” she continues as she fishes it out and flicks over to her inbox, “and then I’ll…” she trails off, letting out a small involuntary noise at the subject line of the email waiting for her.

> Your Course Lottery Results

“What’s that?” Logan asks from where he’s trying manfully to untangle more lights and then, under his breath, “These came in a box. How can they already be so tangled?”

“Um. It’s my classes for next semester.”

He looks up, lights clicking softly between his hands. “How’d you do?”

Veronica moves over to him and snags another glob of tangled lights, beginning to tease out some of the strands. “I mostly got what I signed up for…third year preference and all.”

“And what aspects of corporate law will I be listening to you whine about via email this semester?” The twinkle in his eye takes any sting out of his words. She does tend to use Logan as a dumping ground for some of her course frustrations.

“Well…a seminar on Law of the Sea, for one.”

He snorts. “Seriously?”

“It seemed relevant. I’m hoping it’ll help me predict where the whims of our government will have you sent next.”

Logan merely raises an eyebrow and continues wrangling the lights. “What else?”

“Uh,” Veronica tucks her wad of lights under her arm and consults her phone screen again, “Lectures in Criminal Investigations and Juvenile Justice, another seminar in Advanced Trial Practices and one on Immigration Law and…a Community Defense Externship. I was really lucky to get that one; it’s pretty competitive.”

“Externship?”

“Basically I’ll work at a public defense practice in Harlem.”

“Like a legal aid place?”

“Kind of, yeah, but more. They offer a lot of social services, pre-arrest services, It’s really interesting actually, they’re right in the community…they do good work.”

“Sounds like it.”

 _Ah-Ha!_ Veronica succeeds in finding the linchpin strand of the snarl and the lights come apart meekly in her hands. She smiles triumphantly and Logan goes back to his own untangling. She almost thinks he’ll leave the topic alone, but then...

"So, that’s kind of a different slate of courses. What's the reason for this change?"

_Of course not, he's Logan._

Veronica closes her eyes momentarily, "I don't really want to..."

Logan runs his tongue along his teeth and nods before grabbing the now neat coil of lights out of her hand and turning to the tree behind them. He looks a little wary and Veronica can admit—to herself—that it’s maybe slightly earned. She knows she hasn’t exactly been the picture of emotional stability this visit.

She’s not annoyed now, exactly. She’s just…

Veronica takes a deep breath and says, evenly, "You don't have any idea what I lost, last time." 

Logan turns back around to look at her, solemn but not confused by the reintroduced topic. 

"Last time, when the detecting went wrong - when I fucked up - I lost everything. My dad, my life...you. I'm not sure it's worth it." 

He nods again. She's waiting somewhat desperately for him to fill the silence. 

"It doesn't have to be all or nothing, Veronica."

"Yeah, you've...said that." She sighs. "Let me figure it out, okay?"

His eyes are fathomless. "Okay."

_______________

 

It takes Logan about another hour to finish putting up the decorations to his satisfaction. Veronica watches him from the couch for a while with a glass of wine before heading back into the kitchen to finish the dinner preparations.

The twice-baked potatoes are roasting in the oven, the meat is almost done, salad is prepped, and all that is left are the condiments. Just as Veronica snags some fresh horseradish out of the refrigerator, the timer on the oven goes off and her phone buzzes on the counter.

She tosses a harassed look at it and Logan, passing by, glances at the display and yells, “It’s your dad!”

The timing sucks, but she hasn’t talked to her father all day, so Veronica grabs the phone and wedges it between her shoulder and her ear. Swiping off the oven timer and opening the door with her other hand.

“Hi Dad!”

“Hey honey, sorry to interrupt.”

Logan moves swiftly to help her, grabbing a potholder and easing the roast pan out of the oven as she falls back a few steps. The delicious smell of garlic-rubbed roast rolls out into the kitchen, momentarily distracting her. “Um, no problem, as long as it’s quick. I’m just pulling dinner out. What’s up?”

“Can I speak to Logan for a minute?”

Veronica’s eyebrows meet her hairline, but she straightens up and wordlessly hands Logan the phone. He looks at it like it’s an alien device before plucking it gingerly out of her hand and moving to the far side of the living room.

She can just hear his cautious “Mr. Mars?” before his voice fades into a quiet murmur.

Veronica turns back to the oven, moving the small standing rib roast to rest on the kitchen island. She pulls out her tablet to double check the instructions and then crafts a somewhat clumsy tent out of tinfoil.

The instructions say to let the meat rest for at least fifteen minutes before carving it. She glances up at Logan, dying to go over there and listen to his half of the conversation.

_Let it rest._

Carefully mixing up and stirring the horseradish sauce, she watches Logan out of the corner of her eye as he paces around with the phone pressed to his ear, speaking quietly a few times, but mostly listening.

She raises her eyebrows at him as he hangs up the phone. “What was that about?”

“Well,” Logan scratches the back of his neck, “you remember I mentioned this fall that I was going to go over to your dad’s and help refinish your old dresser?”

Veronica nods neutrally, eyes downcast, focusing on plating the salad to give him space to gather his thoughts.

“Apparently he’s taken to the idea of using me for manual labor. Last week he commanded my presence and we power washed and painted his kitchen.”

She can’t quite keep the corner of her mouth from twitching upward. “How did that go?”

“I don’t know…” Logan shrugs, “well, I think. He kept glaring at me while he was painting the pillars, though. I have no idea what that was about.”

“So what did he want just now?”

“I’m…not sure. He said thank you,” Logan clears his throat, “for the kitchen again.” Veronica nods and he continues, that strange unreadable expression still on his face, “and he said good luck, you know, on deployment.” He smiles weakly at her, “Told me not to do anything stupid. For your sake.”

She wants to drop the bowl of salad and go around and give him a hug, but he looks strangely brittle—like he might cry if she did—so she settles for a tilt of her head. “The man gives sage advice, I’ve found it best to follow it religiously.”

“I’m always careful, you know that Veronica.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, listen,” Logan crosses the kitchen swiftly, moving behind her to the refrigerator. She tracks him, turning as he passes, and watches him pluck a small folded piece of paper out from under a magnet exhorting him to ‘Fly Navy!’ He holds the paper out to her. “Here is Cindy Quinn’s number.”

Veronica blinks, trying to figure out the change of subject. “Your CO’s wife?”

“Yeah, she runs the support group for the family members in our squad. I told her if something…I mean if you needed…” He takes a breath in. “Veronica, I told her you were my family and that if you ever called or if anything ever happened she should tell you as much as she could. The Navy only officially notifies next of kin, but a lot of stuff gets passed around through unofficial channels. Mrs. Quinn is good for that…”

Veronica raises her eyebrows. She scoops her cell phone up from the counter where Logan had placed it and tosses it to him. “Lock code’s 2370. Look yourself up.”

He catches the phone, unlocks the screen, and scrolls quickly through her contacts. “Logan…ICE?”

“In case of emergency. To…you know, call.”

“Oh.” He smiles at her.

“Yeah, so put that lady’s number into my phone and stop being stupid.”

Logan does so and walks over to hand her phone back to her. He loops his arms around her waist and pulls her into him, giving her hair a brief nuzzle. “You’re going to be careful too, right?”

“I don’t know…” Veronica sucks in air through her teeth. “When law students go crazy they tend to go all the way. It can be difficult to steer clear of the carnage.”

“It’s not the law school that has me worried.”

“Hey. Here’s a deal.” She leans back to look into his eyes. “ _I’ll_ be careful, if _you’ll_ be careful.”

“What exactly does that entail?”

“No fancy business, no shenanigans, no hijinx on the open sea and no,” she looks down, straightens a button on his shirt, “ejections.”

“So, no infirmary time for me…?”

“Equals no jail time for me. Easy Peasy.”

“But, Sugar,” he whines, “I do so love the medical bay.”

She raises her eyebrows and he leans in and smacks a kiss on her mouth. “Deal.”

“Now. Dinner?”

“Please!”

_________________

 

After dinner, they migrate into the living room where the tree is. Veronica tunes the radio to a Christmas music station and then turns to the tree, rubbing her hands together.

Logan’s gift to Veronica has sat tantalizingly under the tree since she’d arrived from New York. It is a massive square box, festively, if somewhat clumsily, wrapped in red and green paper. She’d rolled her eyes at the massive assortment of small cheap bows affixed to the top—he must have just bought one of the jumbo bags and stuck them all on for good measure—but she can’t deny that she’s dying of curiosity.

A few furtive nudges here and there with her toe over the past few days have determined that the box is surprisingly light for its size. It’s huge, anyway, coming up to Veronica’s waist. Big enough to hold… _what, Veronica?_   _A lot of super spy gadgetry? A really small pony?_ Logan’s gifts in the past have generally been small and meaningful. Or experiences they can share together. She’s never forgotten her nineteenth birthday, the summer before Hearst, and the sky diving excursion. How she’d thought she was going to chicken out the whole way there or the way she’d actually jumped too fast—dragging her somewhat surprised instructor with her on the freefall into oblivion. Also ingrained into her memory is Logan’s enormous, face-splitting grin as he rode across from her in the plane on the way up.

_I should have known then._

Logan glances around the room with satisfaction. “You want to make some popcorn?”

Veronica looks back and forth between Logan and the gift. Logan. Gift. Logan. Gift.

He sighs. “Go ahead then.”

She pounces on the box with glee, ripping the wrapping paper off eagerly to find…a gigantic plain brown cardboard box.

Flipping the box’s flaps up, she stares in bewilderment at the mound of crumpled up red tissue paper that fills the interior. She glances back at Logan, who is now sitting on the couch, worrying the edge of this thumb between his teeth. He gives her a glance that indicates ‘get on with it,’ and she turns back to the box.

At first she takes the loosely wadded tissue paper out with some care, checking to make sure that nothing is caught in the folds, but by the time Veronica is a third of the way through the box, she is just shoveling it out onto the floor. She’s bent over at the waist, head-first into the box. A wad of tissue paper gets momentarily caught in her hair and she wiggles around, flinging her head back and arching her spine to get rid of it without losing her balance.

She pops her head slightly out of the box and sends a glare in the direction of the couch. “What the hell, Logan?”

“Mm…keep going. I’m enjoying my gift just fine.” He gives her ass a leer.

With a final, frustrated dive back into the box, Veronica at last pulls out a medium sized red envelope with her name on it that had been resting on the very bottom.

She turns, hands on hips, and brandishes the envelope. “Seriously, Logan?”

“I…thought it would be funny. Maybe not so much?”

She can’t help smile at the sheepish look on his face; Logan has always been a fan of the production. Coming over to sit next to him on the couch, Veronica eases the envelope open. Before she can fully figure out what the slips of paper inside entail, he’s rushing into an explanation.

“It’s travel vouchers, see. For San Diego to New York, round trip. They’re good while I’m gone. I thought your Dad, or Mac or Wallace could come see you—or you could come here. Whichever. They work both ways. So, you know…”

“Logan…”

She looks up at him, trying to reconcile the feelings of happiness and gratitude with the slight irritation that always comes when he spends money on things that feel…too much to her. It’s a funny, indefinable line somewhere inside of her. Smaller gifts or things that they can both enjoy; yes. This, somehow, these plane tickets—the big production of the box and the paper—ride right on the edge of no. But he’s looking at her and dammit, he’s nervous.

_Stop being shitty, Veronica. It’s a gift._

She leans over to him and gives him a kiss. “Thank you, Logan. This is amazing.”

He smiles into the kiss. “Yeah?”

“Mm…oh yeah.” He’s kissing deep now, tongue sliding into her mouth as his hands press her back into the couch cushions. “Mmph!” She pulls back and away from the kiss with an audible smack and Logan looks put out. “Down boy. We’re not done with the presents.”

Sliding off of his lap onto the ground, Veronica crawls the short distance from the couch over to the tree where a few more, significantly smaller, packages rest. She pushes a medium sized box in Logan’s direction and it slides across the living room carpet, coming to a halt at his feet.

“For _moi_?”

She settles, cross-legged, a few feet away to watch as Logan hoists up the box and rips off the wrapping paper. Suddenly what had originally seemed like a clever gift idea seems stupid. _It’s not even—_

“A vacuum sealer?” Logan examines the illustrations on the box uncertainly.

Veronica nods, diffident. “It was the best way I could think of to ensure that you didn’t go through cookie withdrawal over the next six months.”

His face lights up. “Cookies?”

“If you play your cards right.”

“You’re going to send me cookies?” The boyish glee in his voice—sliding up almost an octave with excitement—makes her grin. “C’mere.” Logan holds a hand out to her and, when she crawls over, pulls her onto his lap and nibbles at the column of her neck. “Every week?”

Veronica laughs, suddenly carefree and full of Christmas cheer. “I’m thinking maybe bi-weekly. I do have classes to go to after all.”

“I’ve never…” He trails off, then simply smiles at her. “Yeah. Thank you Veronica. It’s nice to have something to look forward to out there.”

_______________

 

Presents opened and paper cleared away, they're back on the couch, Veronica resting heavily against him. They’re both slightly sluggish from the large dinner, but Logan can’t stop his hand—and his mind—from wandering under her sweater. _Thirteen…no, twelve hours until I have to report._

Twelve hours left of the best Christmas of his entire life and he wants to spend all of the rest of them in bed.

His fingers are trailing lightly up her ribs, heading for bra territory, when:

“You’re _sure_ no Skype or video chat or anything will work out there?”

 _Shit_.

In an optimistic mood, Logan continues to trace one fingertip around the bottom band of her bra, aiming for the clasp in the back, while striving to keep his voice steady. “Not on the boat’s internet, it’s too slow.”

Veronica, though, will not be deterred. She leans forward a little, shifting his hand downward. “Because I know you said that, but I saw this thing online…”

He pulls his hand out from under her shirt with a small grunt of frustration, “I know what I’m talking about, Veronica.”

“The lady in the forum—”

“Yeah, it’s different everywhere—different ships, different capabilities—but our carrier isn’t equipped for anything more than extremely slow email and even that will get held up sometimes. Think 90s dial up speed level of connection. Even regular pictures take forever to load.” Logan can hear the surly tone of his own voice, but can’t seem to rein it in. _It’s not like I’m happy about this._

“Okay, okay.”

“I was just—“

Veronica pushes up off of the couch. “I’m going to go do the dishes.”

He looks up at her in disgruntlement. “Leave them. The cleaning service will get everything.”

“They’re not coming until tomorrow afternoon!”

“So?”

“That’s disgusting, Logan!”

“It’s not going to—fine. Yeah. I’ll get them in the morning before I go.”

“No.” Her voice is hard and tired.  “I’ll get them now.”

Veronica turns on her heel and vanishes into the kitchen and the sounds that soon emanate seem _slightly_ more violent than would seem to be required by typical dishwashing.

Logan tightens his jaw and levers himself off the couch. He glances around, the living room is fairly tidy—they had already cleaned up the mess from unwrapping presents—so he heads back down the short hallway toward their bedroom.

He knows Veronica and, all things considered, it’s better to give her a few minutes alone right now. Himself too.

Back in the bedroom, he checks his duffle, already packed. The uniform of the day for tomorrow’s report is service khakis, so those are hanging on the hook on the side of his closet shelving unit.

Exhaling roughly, Logan fingers the hem of his khaki uniform blouse, fingers ironing over a small, nearly invisible crease.

It sort of settles him that he actually knows what is going on with Veronica, or...thinks he does. He’s pretty sure, anyway.

All of the family packets that the Navy puts out talk about how, before deployment, there is a tendency for couples to pick fights; to distance themselves as an unconscious coping mechanism, so that the separation is easier to deal with. Other guys in his squad have mentioned it casually, but Logan has never really experienced it for himself. He was only casually dating Cassandra before his last deployment. She didn’t want to wait and he didn’t expect her to. They had broken up amicably well before he put out to sea.  

He and Veronica, it’s not exactly the usual situation because they’re already long distance, but they’re both doing it. This whole visit has been a mixture of their usual rush of affection at coming together peppered with small arguments, moments of unwarranted frustration that neither of them have allowed to develop into full-blown fights.

He’d snapped at Veronica yesterday for something so trivial he can’t even remember what it was now. The look in her eyes has stuck with him, though.

Logan stares at the large bed—winter-weight comforter, sheets hastily made—for a long moment. He hefts his sea bag by the strap, bouncing it a few times and feeling its weight before setting it down in precisely the same place.

He goes back to the kitchen.

At the sink, Veronica plunges her hands into the hot soapy water, scrubbing furiously at the dried-on cheese. Her movements are jerky and she splashes water on the counter in irregular waves.

Logan comes up behind her and places his hands on her waist. Wordlessly he fits himself around her, resting his chin on top of her head and taking a long breath in. She stills and lets the plate she is holding slide back into the water, but doesn’t turn around.

“Sorry.” And he is. For all of it.

Her weight relaxes back into him. Her hair smells vaguely like cinnamon tonight, spicy and sweet.

“Look, I know this is…”

Veronica turns around in his grasp, leaning back against the sink to look into his eyes. “It’s okay— _we’re_ okay. I’m sorry I’ve been so,” she waves a hand in lieu of trying to find a word that summarizes the un-summarizeable, “It’s just hard.”

“I know.”

“It’s not like we haven’t been doing long distance for a while now, it’s just that…”

“This feels different?”

“Yeah.”

“For me too.”

She tilts forward to rest her forehead against his sternum and there is a long moment where neither of them seems capable of doing anything more than breathing together. Logan wants to wrap her tenderly in blankets, wants to fuck her senseless, wants to consume her, absorb her into himself, never let her leave, never leave himself.

_Have to leave._

When Veronica slides her wet hands into the back pockets of his jeans, Logan summons up a smile, consciously turning away from the sad. “Hey now, stop trying to use my fine ass as a towel.”

His girlfriend, fucking amazing person that she is, follows his lead mischievously.

“I’m so sorry, you’re right. The washboard abs would be more appropriate.” She whips her hands out of his pocket and slips them under his thermal to wipe on his stomach.

In response, Logan gives a girlish squeal and does a little dance that has Veronica snorting with laughter. He captures one of her hands in each of his—“Lets keep these out of trouble,”—and loops them around his neck.

He examines her minutely as the laughter dies down, the fine texture of her skin, hair piled sloppily up into a bun, water splotches on her festively ugly Christmas sweater. An inescapable whim overtakes him, “dance with me.”

“Um, no music?”

Logan scoffs. “Well, I wonder how we could fix that?” He guides her in a small spin and she chuckles lightly, thinking, before starting in on what he knows is one of her favorite ballads, her voice unfurling into the kitchen. _“See the pyramids along the Nile, Watch the sunrise on a tropic isle,”_

Logan can feel the smile spread across his face as he rearranges their hands into a more traditional dance hold, one hand clasped in hers, the other resting on her waist. Veronica’s free hand drifts up to sit on his shoulder, her thumb gently caressing him through the material of his shirt.

“ _Just remember, darling, all the while, You belong to me,”_ Veronica has a lovely voice that she only employs rarely. Usually it is a bell-clear soprano, but today it slides into a huskier, almost jazzy tone. They move slowly, twirling around the kitchen to the haunting old melody.

 _“See the marketplace in old Algiers, Send me photographs and souvenirs,”_ He drops Veronica into a little dip and she smiles up at him, teasingly admonishing the next lines, _“Just remember when a dream appears, you belong to me.”_

They spin some more, lost in the spell as Veronica’s voice echoes in the cocooning silence, wavering a little as she heads into the bridge. _“I'll be so lonesome without you,”_ She croons the words, voice heavy with emotion, _“but baby you'll be lonesome too,”_ she does a small jazz riff on the last word to hide the cracking as her throat closes up, _“…and blue.”_

Logan pulls her closer, out of the dance hold, until they are more swaying while tightly embracing rather than actually dancing. Veronica sings the last verse muffled into his shoulder. _“Fly the ocean in a silver plane,”_ she takes a deep gasping breath before continuing, _“see the jungle when it's wet with rain. Just remember, 'til you're home again, you belong to me.”_

The soft, sad melody fades away into the sound of their breathing, leaving them clutching each other, Veronica’s head still buried in Logan’s chest.

“Logan, I…”

“I know.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many thanks, as always, to the fabulous **marshmallowtasha** for the beta!
> 
> Veronica is singing the old ballad, “You Belong To Me,” originally recorded by Sue Thompson, but covered and re-recorded innumerable times. Veronica’s arrangement is pretty close to this [Vonda Shepard cover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cp_7doO9D0), in my mind.


	9. January, 2015 - May, 2015

 

 

> To: Veronica Mars <vmars@gmail.com>  
>  From: Cynthia Quinn <cquinn@vfa82frg.gov>  
>  Sent: Saturday, January 3rd, 2015  
>  Subject: Family Readiness Group Newsletter: January 2015
> 
> Welcome, family members of the VFA-82 Shadow Hawks to 2015 and a very happy New Year to everyone! We’ve had quite a few new families join us since the last deployment, and I could not be happier to welcome you all to our community. This organization exists to support the Hawk family members as you, in turn, support your service member. 
> 
> Please feel free to reach out to any of the ladies running the FRG at any time. You’ll find names and contact information on our website and on our Facebook page. Remember that the Facebook page is closed, so make sure you request membership!
> 
> For those of you in the San Diego area, we’ll be having our monthly potluck at Bainbridge Park next Saturday at 1:00pm. All spouses, family members, and FRG members are welcome to attend. Thanks to Janae Kraft for organizing this month!
> 
> One last reminder, tax season is upon us and, as in previous years, Navy Federal is offering a FREE Income Tax Course for Military Spouses. The course normally costs between $250 and $300, but Navy Federal pays full tuition for eligible students.
> 
> Warmest regards,
> 
> Cindy Quinn,  
>  FRG President, VFA-82

________________

 

In many ways, Veronica’s days don’t change significantly after Logan leaves on deployment. When she wakes up in her small bed in New York, he is not there; but then, he never was. When she comes home after a long day in the law library or at the clinic, he is not there; but then, he never was.

Nothing has changed, really.

Nothing, except the fact that she can’t call him whenever she has a few spare minutes. No texting. Definitely no weekly Skype calls.

Just frustratingly inconsistent emails, a few scratchy and awkward calls from the satellite pay phones on board the carrier, and the constant, nagging low murmur of worry.

But she’s okay.

She’s strong and she knew this was coming. She’s had her game face on since the moment Logan gave her a last kiss goodbye and closed the door behind him, leaving her alone in a condo still decorated for Christmas. He’d hired a service to come in and put everything away, but some stubborn instinct in Veronica had made her spend that whole afternoon alone, carefully winding strands of Christmas lights into neat coils and packing them away in the closet. She’d set everything to rights—dishes done, decorations away, bed made—before locking up behind her and driving up to Neptune to spend the remainder of the holiday with her father.

It was a test: _Can I do this_?

Turns out the answer is yes. And no.

Her last semester of law school maintains a hectic pace that keeps her busy; she’s taking a full load of credits—the tail end of her catch-up from the semester she missed—and her clinic externship seems to suck up as many extra hours as she can find in a day. Mostly there’s no _time_ to dwell on anything.

And when things get really bad—in the depths of the evening, at home alone on her couch—she’ll call Logan’s phone. It rings once, goes right to voicemail, and then there’s Logan’s warm voice in her ear explaining that he won’t be available at that number for an extended period of time and reminding her that Christopher Reeve once said, “Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool, or you go out in the ocean.” Sometimes the quote makes her smile, often it makes want to throw her phone across the room and then curl up into a ball. It’s a sick form of masochism, like pressing on a bruise to feel the pain again.

Usually she just listens and then hangs up. Usually. Sometimes, though, she finds herself leaving voice mail messages into the void. Things that are easier to say to a cut off phone than to Logan’s email inbox. Things she can’t seem to keep herself from saying. Things she maybe doesn’t actually want a response to.

She can picture his cell phone sitting in the drawer of his nightstand like it did when he went out on training exercises this summer. As current plans stand, she’ll be in San Diego to meet him a few days before the carrier docks. She’ll have plenty of time to erase the messages.

Veronica hates putting her emotions down in writing. It’s hard enough to say what she feels to his face. To try to sit there and process everything she’s feeling—how much she misses and loves him—and then reduce it down to words typed into an email…it just seems so impossible. And he doesn’t need anything else to worry about. So she updates him on her day, her clinic work, her increasingly frequent cases. And she doesn’t slip.

______________

~ You have…one…new message. Message one, left… Friday, January 30th at…10:55pm. ~  
  
<< Where the hell are you now? No email in three days, you jackass. >>

______________

 

 

> To:  Logan Echolls <logan.echolls@us.navy.mil>  
>  From: Veronica Mars <vmars@gmail.com>  
>  Sent:  Friday, January 30th, 2015  
>  Subject: It’s a hell of a town.
> 
> Hey Sailor,
> 
> Let me set the scene…
> 
> The time: Today, two o’clock.
> 
> The place: The 3 train, roundabout 135th street
> 
> The combatants: A rather heavy woman with about five shopping bags who was sitting next to me minding her own business and a wiry guy of about fifty-five with a perma-scowl and a comb-over that would make Trump proud. 
> 
> He, completely unprompted as far as I could tell, leaned across the aisle as we were all sitting there staring into space, and told her she should, “go running more often.”
> 
> She took offense and within minutes the verbal brawl had escalated to the point where he was calling her a “beast.” At this point she pulled a full head of cabbage out of her shopping bag and threw it right in his face.
> 
> I got off in the middle of the contretemps thankfully (unfortunately?) but I know that someone on that train just got youtube famous for that video.
> 
> I’m sorry about the extra flight time you’ve been logging. Does it seem like they’re going to bring in a new pilot to replace Verelli any time soon? I don’t quite get how that works, anyway. Where do the new pilots come from? If they come in the middle of a deployment like this do they have to make up time? Like, does the Navy cast them out to sea in a bucket to keep things equal?
> 
> And, if not, where can you sign up for these shorter replacement deployments?
> 
> Veronica

 

________________

Life onboard an aircraft carrier is like Groundhog Day. Wake up, Ready Room, paperwork, flight time, paperwork, the maintenance bay of the hangar, more paperwork, the gym, and sleep. The same places and the same faces, day in and day out, week after week. Work bleeds into every aspect of life and the weekend is a meaningless designation. The routine can be mind numbing or comforting, depending on your state of mind.

Two months into his second deployment, Logan is currently inclined to find it comforting.

It’s…Wednesday? Tuesday? The middle of the week anyway. He and a bunch of other aviators are hanging around the Ready Room. Three hours ago the “Mail call, mail call!” announcement had gone out over the carrier’s PA system. It usually took hours for the boat’s small mail room to process the thousands of pounds of letters and packages that came in by plane every other day or so. The squadron’s mail would be delivered to the Ready Room and then sorted out into cubbies on the wall for the guys to pick up at their convenience, but inevitably once the call went out that a mail shipment had arrived on board the pilots would start to congregate in anticipation.

Mail call tends to become a social time for the members of the squad who aren’t on duty as they share their cards, read funny snippets from letters, pass around care package items, and mock the contents of each other’s boxes.

On his first cruise, as a lowly nugget, Logan had generally avoided the mail call crowd. This time it’s different.

Two and a half weeks into deployment, the first package had come. A plain brown box sitting in his cubby; Logan traced his finger over the familiar slant that Veronica gave the capital “V” in her name on the return address.

“Hey, look at Mouth with a nice package there!”

“You know it.” Logan made a crude gesture toward his crotch and Vic rolled his eyes but continued.

“Come up in the world, have we?”

Logan had just grinned and ripped the box open. He’d hauled out the vacuum-seal bag inside and pulled a small switchblade out of his pocket to slice quickly through the plastic, releasing the scent of fresh peanut butter cookies into the air.

“Ooh, cookies? Damn.” Vic made a snatching grab for the bag, but Logan jerked it out of reach, snagging a cookie out of it and stuffing it into his mouth with an ostentatious ‘ _mmm_ ’ of enjoyment.

“I didn’t really take your girlfriend for the cookie baking type.”

Logan swallowed the remains of the cookie in a big gulp and nodded sagely, “Veronica can not be put in a box, man.”

Since then, the packages have come semi-regularly. The carrier’s mail is unreliable so sometimes there will be a few deliveries without anything for him and then other times there will be multiple packages in a single shipment. Vacuum packed cookies of all types—snickerdoodles, oatmeal, peanut butter, classic sugar cookies, some freaking delicious caramel apple thing—and usually a short note or funny card.

The packages do make things easier, in a way. It’s pretty...well, surreal to have regular factual proof that there’s someone out there who cares that much about him.

In other ways, though, this deployment is his hardest one yet. Having someone to miss; it’s a new sensation and one that he’s not enjoying.

At that moment, the Ready Room door swings open and a seaman with a giant mail bag slung over his shoulder like Santa Claus enters, only to be immediately swarmed. Logan smiles and joins the fray. At least there’s cookies.

________________

 

 

> To:  Veronica Mars <vmars@gmail.com>  
>  From:  Logan Echolls <logan.echolls@us.navy.mil>  
>  Sent:  Wednesday, February 18th, 2015  
>  Subject: Re: Re: Story time!
> 
> Something happened today that I’ve never actually been a part of before: a swim call. Oft rumored, but seldom practiced, this antiquated naval ritual involves—you guessed it!—parking our four and a half acres of sovereign US territory somewhere in the middle of the ocean and letting the crew jump off of it and swim like deranged penguins.
> 
> We were transiting over the Marianas Trench today, the deepest part of the ocean, and I guess the captain thought the romance of the thing was too great to pass up, because he decided to let us out for a while. Rumor in the Ready Room has it that the old guy was feeling nostalgic for his own days as a Lieutenant when his boat did a swim call right here and he got the ride of his life from, depending on who you listen to, either a mermaid or some sort of weird subterranean creature with scary teeth.
> 
> It would explain a lot.
> 
> Anyway, they lowered the aircraft elevators down to the hangar and let any poor schmuck who wanted to jump off the edge into the world’s deepest swimming pool. Of course yours truly, schmuck extraordinaire, was unable to resist. It’s about a thirty-foot drop off of the elevator into the water. The water itself is unbelievably salty, and it was warm; nothing like the beaches at home. We did see a few dolphins, which would have made you happy (no lying, you know you’d squeal for Flipper), but I have to admit to being somewhat jaded about the bottle nosed fake sharks after all this time on the boat.
> 
> The trench itself is actually pretty narrow, like this slash of inky water across a normal colored sea. It was kind of unnerving to splash around and think of all of that space beneath you going down and down, beyond what even our best subs can explore. We couldn’t stay in for too long, but they let us swim around a little between elevator one and two, then we had to scramble back up a cargo net onto the carrier.
> 
> Just a few hours later I was back in the cockpit. From the depths to the heights in one day. The Navy really should hire me to write its promotional literature.
> 
> Logan

________________

~ You have…four…new messages. Message four, left… Friday, February 20th at…8:12pm. ~   
  
<< …I talked to my dad today and then just kind of automatically called your number. This sucks. I hate the fucking Navy. >>

________________

It turns out that one of the most interesting things that Veronica does in her last semester of law school is working at the Community Defense Center in Harlem—the externship she had signed up for on something of a whim and wound up getting, much to her surprise.

The class is incredibly competitive to get into and Veronica didn’t exactly have a lot of background in the criminal law courses or connections with the professors. At first, even attempting to sign up had been a knee-jerk, slightly spiteful I’ll-show-him kind of reaction to Logan’s pressing her about her classes. (What _exactly_ she’d thought taking his advice would “show him” remains unclear to her.) But the externship required an interview process, and the more she’d talked to the professor and to several of the clinic’s lawyers the more she’d felt pulled toward the course. A final interview right before Winter Break with the manager of the clinic, Terrence Bell, a tall, ebony-skinned man possessing an almost ridiculous degree of charisma, had sealed the deal. Veronica wanted this externship.

Whatever drove that desire, be it competition or…well, whatever, Veronica had been both elated and slightly terrified to find out that she’d gotten a slot.

The CDC’s offices are housed in a medium-sized storefront in Harlem, a few subway stops away from Columbia. It’s a nondescript building, just like every other building on the block, the front entryway obscured by sidewalk scaffolding. Inside is an open-plan office space that is constantly humming with life. One of CDC’s main claims to fame is its pre-arrest services; anyone can come to the center if they even hear the police are looking for them. The CDC staff also keeps up with former clients while they track their way through the net of social services in the city. As a result, the rooms are constantly crowded with clients, potential clients, family members, social workers, lawyers, and interns in and out at all hours.

Veronica is one of six Columbia law students taking the externship with CDC in the Spring semester. She had been pleased to discover that one the others was her friend Joan. Ethnically Filipino and loud in her appreciation for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Joan had earned Veronica’s approbation Freshman year by being a few inches shorter than her own 5’1” and the friendship had developed easily, if casually, from there. The girls live in apartments near each other in Lenfast and start to get together frequently in the evenings to prep for their weekly seminar meetings. The course also involves a minimum of ten hours a week working at the clinic itself, culminating in overseeing a misdemeanor case.

At the beginning of the semester, Veronica gets paired with Anthony Bonilla, one of the clinic’s attorneys, and is quickly plunged into helping him write motions and manage his caseload.

Anthony is a Brooklyn Law grad, from Harlem himself, and take-no-prisoners intense about serving the community he came from. He’s the second rung of the clinic’s three lawyer criminal defense roster and, after working for him for two days, Veronica is pretty sure he’ll be running the place in ten years.

He seems to size her up pretty quickly as well, through a series of impatient orders that function as thinly disguised tests of her competence, and he starts to parcel off more and more complex work in her direction.

At the end of her second week of working at CDC, Veronica is sitting at the back of an intake meeting, diligently taking notes while Anthony interviews a potential new client.

The client is a skinny Black man of about Veronica’s age named Tre Arrington. He’s angular and gangly and his knee jounces a jittery rhythm as he lays the case out. He’s been accused of armed robbery—holding up a small convenience store and making off with over three thousand dollars. The convenience store clerk had looked through a book of photos at the police precinct and picked out Tre.

“They look me up and found out my job—I work for the city, sweeping streets—that day my job was only like six blocks from where the robbery was done. I signed in that day ‘fore my shift, but I ain’t signed out.”

As he tells the story, Tre’s eyes flick back and forth, from Anthony, to Risa the intake counselor, to Veronica, to the table. Back to Veronica. She can feel him size her up and mentally dismiss her—the least impressive member of the team—and direct his words to a point on the wall mid-way between Anthony and Risa.

Anthony drums his fingers on the table. “Why didn’t you sign back out?”

“I don’t _know_.” Up until now, Mr. Arrington’s voice has been middle-pitched and even. Careful. He’s told this story a million times to a million different people and it’s almost ceased being real to him. Now, though, Veronica can hear that familiar desperation.

_You’ve got to find out if she’s cheating._

_I know he couldn’t have done it, I know it._

_Help me, please! I need your help, Veronica._

“I don’t know,” Tre repeats. “I always sign out. We’re supposed to; they get real mad if you don’t. That day…I didn’t leave work. I know I didn’t. I don’t know why I wasn’t signed out.”

When the police had picked him up for questioning, Tre had insisted that he was innocent—he still maintains that he hadn’t done anything, hadn’t even been anywhere near the store. To the police, however, it was cut and dried: the clerk had picked him out of a line-up— _after having seen his picture_ , Veronica notes mentally—and charges were filed.

At arraignment, the court appointed DA had taken five minutes to go over the case with him before advising Tre that his best bet was to plead out.

Angered, and still insisting on his innocence, Tre had told the judge he wanted a new lawyer, and through the usual relative-of-a-friend-of-a-friend word-of-mouth style referral that tended to bring their clients in, had landed at CDC.

“So you gonna take my case, or what?”

Anthony gathers his papers up between his hands and taps them briskly against the table; they settle meekly into an ordered pile. “We’ll take it.” He stands up, and everyone else in the room follows his lead. Reaching across the table, he gives Tre’s hand a firm shake.

“We’ll start looking into the case right away. Someone—most likely myself or Veronica—” he nods in her direction, “will be in touch with you as soon as we’ve set up another arraignment. Risa will take you out and get all of your information.”

Tre gives a sharp nod, lips pressed firmly together, and follows Risa out of the room. Veronica can hear the clipped alto tones of his mother, who has been waiting in the lobby, start in on questioning him almost immediately.

The last two hours of her shift pass quickly between setting up the re-arraignment and researching motions for a few other cases. She works steadily, not stopping for small chat with Joan, although her friend tries a few times to open their usual easy conversations.

_Focus. Work then go home. Nothing more is required of you._

Veronica makes it to the end of her shift unscathed, but just as she is getting ready to gather her things and leave, Anthony passes by her desk.

“Hey Veronica, the team meeting for Tre Arrington is getting going in my office. You want in?”

She hesitates for a small heartbeat, but even as she does she knows that the outcome of her internal struggle is never really in question. Working at CDC seems to be tapping into her old curiosity—in some ways more so than taking PI cases for her classmates and a few random New Yorkers has. Veronica gets up and follows after Anthony and Terrence Bell and a few other employees whose names she’s still sorting out.

_Damn my eternal need to know things._

She settles against the wall in the corner of Anthony’s small office and tunes in to the conversation in progress. Anthony is walking the rest of the team through the next steps.

“We need to follow up with his supervisor—see if there’s any reason why he wouldn’t have signed out that day. Interview the witness, maybe some of Mr. Arrington’s family members as character witnesses.”

Across the room, one of the lawyers Veronica hasn’t met yet sighs in frustration, twisting her curly blonde hair up into a loose bun on the top of her head and securing it with a pencil. “Has anyone heard from Pete yet?”

Pete Sanchez is the full time investigator employed by CDC.

Risa answers. “Still in the hospital, as far as I know.” Veronica has long since figured out that all information in the office flows through Risa and the intake desk.

The unknown lawyer sighs. “Dammit. We do not have time to do all of this investigating ourselves. My caseload is insane as it is.”

Anthony shakes his head. “We’ll make it work. We always do.”

The conversation moves on, but Veronica tunes it out. Her scalp is tingling. No one is looking at her. No one expects anything, but she can feel it inching up on her: another Rubicon. Another line to be crossed. _How many more of these freaking moments of decision are there?_

The meeting breaks up and Veronica trails down the hallway after Terrence Bell. He turns right, into his own office, while Veronica drifts left, over toward the employee break room area, where she collects her shoulder bag and changes her heels for sneakers in preparation to walk back to Columbia, her mind still churning furiously.

_To be, or not to be; that is the question, Veronica._

On her way out, she hesitates for a moment outside of Terrence’s door before rolling her eyes at her own trepidation and knocking briskly on the doorframe.

The clinic director looks up. “Veronica, hi.”

She plunges right in. “We need to make sure someone interviews the officer who put together the line-up. Mr. Arrington has a pretty visible birthmark on his cheek, but the witness didn’t mention anything about that in the initial police report she filed before the line-up.”

He raises his eyebrows. “That’s an excellent point, Veronica. I’ll make sure to make a note in the file.” He turns to his computer, making to bring up the file right then, but checks the motion as she keeps talking.

“I know that your—our—full time investigator is out sick.” Veronica meets the director’s level gaze with her own. “I have a valid Private Investigator’s license in the State of New York and a fair amount of experience working cases both here and in California. I know it falls outside of the boundaries of my internship, but I would be happy to help out in that capacity, if need be.”

“That’s…appreciated.” He taps his fingers absently on his keyboard, “I confess, I hadn’t noticed that detail in your application file.”

“I didn’t include it. I can, of course, provide client and employer references, if you’d like.”

_Please, dear god, don’t make me call and tell Dad about this._

He looks at her for a moment; assessing, thinking, then, “Bring your license when you come in—you have a shift tomorrow, right?—and give it to Risa. She’ll make sure everything is above board.”

“Will do.”                                                               

As Veronica turns to leave, his low bass rumble of a voice stops her. “I warn you, Veronica: we’re going to take shameless advantage of you. This will have to be outside of the required hours for your Columbia course, but we can use all hands available at this point.”

She nods. “I’ll have the paperwork tomorrow.”

________________

 

 

> To:  Logan Echolls <logan.echolls@us.navy.mil>  
>  From: Veronica Mars <vmars@gmail.com>  
>  Sent:  Monday, March 9th, 2015  
>  Subject: Your increasing wrinkles
> 
> Happy birthday, man of the sea. 
> 
> I sent you an extra special package for this occasion about a week ago, but I suspect it hasn't gotten to you yet. When it does, do us both a favor and don't open it in public. I know you share the cookies, but this might be taking the whole squadron unity thing a bit too far.
> 
> However, if they want to participate in the festivities, you _could_ allow your squad to issue you the requisite birthday spanking. I’m thinking Navy-style—you know, shirtless and vaguely oiled down à la Top Gun. And if it were filmed and sent to me...well, there might be an extra special something in your cookie package next week.
> 
> On second thought, scratch that. Lets save the spanking until you get home.
> 
> I’ll just leave you with that mental image. Don’t say I never got you nothing nice.
> 
> Be good, birthday boy.
> 
> *ahem*
> 
> Birthday _man_.
> 
> Love, Veronica
> 
> PS: In my Law of the Sea seminar we were discussing piracy today. Please stay away from pirates.

________________

~ You have…six…new messages. Message six, left… Tuesday, March 10th at…1:08am. ~  
  
<< The shirt I stole doesn't smell like you anymore. >>

________________

One of the chief slams Air Force pilots have on Navy pilots is that the Navy considers flying a “collateral duty;” naval aviators are supposed to be officers of their squadron first and pilots second. In theory, at least.

It’s times like these—two hours deep into a stack of Fitness Reports for the enlisted men under his direct supervision—that Logan can almost agree with them.

He rolls his eyes at the thought. _At least our flight uniform doesn’t include a scarf._

Pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, he tries to refocus on the fitrep in front of him.

> Chief Petty Officer Vargas has directed numerous improvements in the Line Division.  His managerial style

Logan blinks, searching for the proper word. Vargas’ style is…is…

_Aw, crap._

The long day is catching up with him. He had two separate flight evolutions—the Navy term for basically anything with a beginning and end—today, and then there was a big mess down in the hangar bay which wasn’t technically his job to deal with, but which he found himself entangled in anyway, and now the fitreps…the endless fitreps.

It’s late; he glances at the clock, registering almost midnight. The last of the recoveries for the night finished a half an hour ago, mercifully bringing an end to the booming and crashing noises that reverberate through the Ready Room from the flight deck directly overhead.

His mind keeps wandering, mostly to Veronica. Maybe tomorrow there’ll be another package on the COD. By this point in the cruise, Veronica has started to really experiment with her cookie flavors. The last batch was something kinda funky and cherry flavored—not his favorite—but Cheese had gobbled them right up.

As the evolutions have come to an end, the room has slowly emptied out, leaving the single computer free for the first time all day.

Logan leaves behind the stack of evaluations eagerly and heads over to the computer. The older style desktop looks like something purchased circa 2003—and loads like it too. Logan drums his fingers on the table, waiting with relative patience for the internet to load and then logging in to his email to find… _yes!_...an email from Veronica. He eagerly clicks and begins reading. His eyes automatically skim down to the body of the email first—a short one today—to make sure everything is okay before scanning back up to take in the whole message more slowly.

> _I know you’re floating somewhere in the middle of the briny deep and this probably sounds ridiculous to you, but_ god _do I miss the ocean. New York is so damn concrete-y. I’m thinking about heading out to Brighton Beach next weekend. Hazel and Joan are getting together a group to go. I’ll gorge on borscht and the sun and the sand. Not quite the same ambiance as Crescent Beach, but—_

The Ready Room door opens, letting in four familiar figures and a burst of noise, pulling Logan’s attention reluctantly away from the screen and a mental image of Veronica on the beach. Wearing his favorite bikini. The green one with the little metal thingies…

Vic bounds up right behind Logan and tries to look over his shoulder. Logan covers the screen out of reflex.

“Ooh, email from the giiiiirlfriend, Mouth?”

Vic puts on a high falsetto voice that sounds absolutely nothing like Veronica. “Oh Logan, I miss you so.” He presses his hand to his brow and tosses his head back in the manner of a Victorian lady. “All that time alone with your big…boat. Whatever do you _do_ all day?”

Behind him, Beeper shoots to attention, hands planted on his hips, spine straight, and barks an answer, “I eat lightning!”

Ghost jumps in beside him with perfect timing, “I crap thunder!”

Tank hops forward to complete the line, snapping off a quick salute, “I piss excellence!”

They crack up, crowding around Logan and jostling him boisterously. Accepting that he’s just going to have to finish reading the email—and fantasizing about the bikini—later, Logan quickly logs off and swivels his captain’s chair around.

“Jesus, do you guys practice that shit?”

“Nah, we’re just naturally skilled.” Beeper grins and tosses a small squishy foam soccer ball in his direction. Logan catches it and tosses it back, watching as Beeper snags the ball out of mid-air and flops down into one of the Ready Room’s recliners in one smooth movement. He sprawls the wrong way across the chair, legs dangling over the arm as he tosses the ball up into the air and catches it.

Logan asks the room at large. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Vic snatches the ball from Beeper and throws himself into his own chair nearby. “Saint is watching porn in the room again…naked. And we didn’t feel like making it a group sport.”

The guys around him now are four of Logan’s bunkmates and some of the people he is closest to in the squad. Two of the other guys in their stateroom—Biff and Scooby—are decent guys as well. Saint, the last roommate, struggles a little more with some of the niceties of communal living.

None of the men particularly mind if any of them want to watch porn on the single TV/DVD player combo in their stateroom. It’s Saint’s habit of doing so naked, with just a towel over his lap (although, as he always points out, with hands fully in view), that tends to drive the guys out of the room. None of the rest of them are quite willing to embrace that degree of locker room ambiance.

Looking around and realizing that they have the Ready Room to themselves, Ghost wanders toward the small cabinet holding DVDs the squad has accumulated over the years. He plucks a DVD case out of the stack and wiggles it in the air.

“Bio-Dome?”

“Jesus fuck, Ghost.” Logan tilts back in his chair. “How many times have we watched that? You have got to have the whole thing memorized. We all do. Want Tank and I to act it out for you?”

Tank leans against the podium at the front of the room and recites, “‘Russell, there's beer cans in the trash in the kitchen. There's beer cans in the trash in the bathroom. There's beer cans in the trash in the basement. What does that say?’”

Logan and Beeper chorus in unison: “‘We're out of beer?’”

“Hey! It’s a classic!” Ghost clutches the DVD case to his chest as Vic gets up and tries to wrestle it out of his hands.

Logan tunes the argument out—easy enough to do when he’s heard it dozens of times in the last few months. Since, clearly, going back to the room is out, he could head down to the gym, try to see if any of the treadmills are open, or he can hang out up here with the guys. Two years ago it would have been the gym and there would have been no question about it. He knows he’d built something of a reputation as a loner when he’d first joined the squad, only really talking at length to Cheese, who was himself older and a little inclined to hold apart from the general antics. This tour, though, it feels easier for Logan to connect with his squad mates. Guys who had been co-workers have become friends. He’s looser—he can feel it in himself—and maybe it’s the crash, or having Veronica, but it just feels easier to join in on the reindeer games.

An aviation squadron is a weird place. It’s basically twenty some odd guys (and the occasional girl) with pretty much the exact same personality. They’re all hard-driving extroverts, cocky to the nth degree and driven to be the best. There is a kind of competitive camaraderie between the individual aviators and between the various squadrons on board. Everything is a competition; from landing grades to boarding rates, bombing accuracy, air-to-air engagements won, combat sorties, number of night traps, number of career traps. Hell, it even extends to beers consumed on liberty, video game victories, coolness of car, and hotness of girlfriend or wife.

Logan’s position near the top of some of those categories is a point of personal pride for him and the subject of much razzing from the other guys. He’s holding steady with the best landing grades in the squad, and he’ll fight any man alive on the superiority of Veronica’s ass.

Tank walks over and waves a hand in front of his face, “Mouth, you in there man?”

Logan swats the hand away, laughing. He glances back at the desk, where the stack of fitreps wait, and then longingly at the computer.

_Bio-Dome it is._

______________

 

> To:  Veronica Mars <vmars@gmail.com>  
>  From:  Logan Echolls <logan.echolls@us.navy.mil>  
>  Sent:  Thursday, March 19th, 2015  
>  Subject: Re: Re: Re: Updates 
> 
> Another batch of cookies came today—oatmeal cinnamon. Delicious. The guys I bunk with have figured out all of my hiding places, so I’m starting to have to get creative. After I doled out a few like the cookie fairy, I hid the rest in my extra boots.
> 
> On that note…thank you so much for the cookies and the packages, Veronica. I miss you all the time. Reading your emails, hearing about your day and what you are doing, it is the best part of my day. Please keep writing. I know it sucks when I can’t write back right away. I’m so sorry it’s been three days and I thought I sensed some, shall we say, frustration in your last email. I get it. Really I do. I’m frustrated too. But every time I log in and get an email from you—happy, mad, frustrated, sad, whatever it is—it makes me feel close to home.
> 
> So don’t stop.
> 
> If I had the capabilities, I’d insert a gif of a begging puppy here, but given our internet speed, this deployment might be over before it would attach.
> 
> L

______________

 

 

> To:  Logan Echolls <logan.echolls@us.navy.mil>  
>  From:  Veronica Mars <vmars@gmail.com>  
>  Sent:  Thursday, March 19th, 2015  
>  Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Updates 
> 
> Don’t get maudlin on me, Lieutenant, I hereby promise you a minimum of one email a day for the remainder of the deployment. I’m pretty sure I’ve already been far exceeding that standard.
> 
> If it’s a story you want, a story you shall get. You will not believe this one, it is so mind bending in its amazingness. This story is the story that the other stories tell stories about. Are you ready for the story? Wait for it. Here it comes.
> 
> *jazz hands*
> 
> Okay…I’ve got no stories. My life is mundane. I eat, sleep, and breathe the law. Lady Justice, she is a harsh mistress. Yesterday I spent seven hours at the clinic sorting through phone records. The day before that I read up on _Prince v. Massachusetts_. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? Its implications regarding regulation of the family in the public interest are far reaching.
> 
> All is work and school here in the Big Apple. And the occasional batch of cookies. How did you like the cherry almond shortbread, anyway? You never said.

________________

~ You have…seven…new messages. Message seven, left… Friday, March 20th at…1:02am. ~  
  
<< I’m just really...I miss you. So much. I miss you. >>

________________

 

Veronica is investigating again - it's no fluke, she's not just working the occasional case, she's not just helping out while the clinic is shorthanded, or any of the other lies she's been feeding herself for the past year. She's investigating. 

And she loves it.

It takes Veronica all of two days to poke enough holes in the prosecution’s case against Tre Arrington to get the charges dismissed. From that moment on, she spends nearly as much time in the field as she does at the clinic.

Some time in late March, she is sitting across the street from a strip club with a camera, waiting for a client’s child-support-dodging ex-boyfriend to emerge, when the knowledge seems to settle on her like a blanket.

It's another moment of decision, this one self-inflicted. The heft of the camera in her hand. The click of the pieces falling together when she finds a lead— _the_ lead. She's tried avoiding it, but it always catches up with her. 

_This is something that I will always need do._

She shakes out her leg, stiff from where she’s been crouching behind a dumpster.

_And I want to do it some place where I can stake out from a car._

She considers it as her target emerges and she gets the shot—in a fun plot twist, the scumbag in question is sucking face with another guy. It’s not a long leap from the idea of investigating in California to the thought of investigating with her father.

 _Admit it Veronica, you miss it_. _Him._  

What would working at Mars Investigations as an adult be like? Would he even want her?

Not that she’s quite ready to ask for her old job back. Veronica has always needed time to process before she makes any big personal moves and that holds doubly true when said moves involve her dad. This is something she can afford to think about for a while. 

Her schedule doesn't give her much time to think.

If the clinic externship and the PI work can be classed as good decisions, her seminar on Law of Sea turns out to be pretty much the opposite. The class doesn't last very long at least—only eight weeks—but it turns out that an overview of all of the ways geo-politics could potentially threaten the life of your boyfriend is not a super cheery way to spend two hours every Thursday night.

Each week is a new topic; piracy, clashes over fishing rights, maritime boundary issues, regulating energy and mineral developments. The US government’s solution to all of these issues seems to be maintaining a naval presence. A lot of the potential danger scenarios they discuss involve the various countries surrounding the western Pacific and the South China Sea. From what she knows—and it’s far from concrete—that’s basically where Logan’s carrier is right now.

There’s actually a guy in her class, Jeffery Hammond, who was a Navy Submarine officer for five years. His contributions to the class invariably involve “when I served in the South China Sea…” stories and half of the time they make Veronica feel like throwing up.

He figures out somehow that Veronica ‘is Navy’ (as he puts it) and takes to hanging around after class talking to her. She tries to dodge him, but he turns out to possess Piz-like persistence and generally winds up walking her to her nightly stop at the law library.

He’s talking her ear off one day late in March, telling a long story about a tactical training exercise his Sub participated in that has some slight relevance to their topic in class that day. Veronica has tuned him out and is mentally plotting escape routes— _next time I’m just going to tase him and run_ —when she realizes that he’s asked her if she’s heard from “her guy” recently.

The answer, truthfully, is ‘no,’ but _god_ , she really, really does not feel like talking about Logan with this blowhard. A quip it is.

In her best southern accent: “Oh, you know those Navy studs. They never call…they never write.”

Jeffery is a very literal person.

“Well,” he says flippantly, “That’s what you sign up for,” and walks away, leaving her standing on the steps of the Law Library, fuming.

_Fuck that. I signed up to love him. I did not sign up for five days with not a single email._

As she switches out the light that night, and curls into bed with the groan of the truly weary, Veronica’s hand reaches out for the cell phone on her bedside table.

Without really thinking about it, her fingers swipe a familiar series of commands on the screen and she wedges the phone between her ear and the pillow as she yawns herself to sleep.

_“Hi, you have reached 555-0187. I will be out of the country for the next few months and won’t be available by phone. Don’t be too disappointed by my absence, though. Remember that Christopher Reeve once said, ‘Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool, or you go out in the ocean.’”_

________________

 

> To:  Veronica Mars <vmars@gmail.com>  
>  From:  Logan Echolls <logan.echolls@us.navy.mil>  
>  Sent:  Saturday, April 4th, 2015  
>  Subject: Old age is setting in.
> 
> Veronica, do you remember that time, the summer before college, when we ran into Sean Freidrich and you were sure he was up to something shady, so you followed him? I tried to come after you like a big hero and help, but I tripped and you had to come rescue me from that damn Chihuahua.
> 
> Anyway, I was trying to tell the story to a few of the guys the other day and I couldn’t even remember how we got there in the first place. What the hell were we doing behind a strip club and why did you have an airhorn in your car?
> 
> No wonder no one believes me when I speak; I’m like the boy who cried wacky-thing-my-girlfriend-did-once.
> 
> I really miss you. This is the point in the cruise where we’re all starting to really just want to be home. I want to cook my own food. I want to drive my car. I want to lay in bed with you for hours and do nothing. Or everything.
> 
> You know I’m easy that way.
> 
> L

________________

~ You have…twelve…new messages. Message twelve, left… Wednesday, April 8th at…3:10am. ~   
  
<< You and your stupid quotes, Logan. I’m starting to really hate Christopher Reeve. Superman came on TNT last night and I had to change the damn channel. I hate anything that reminds me of the fact that you’re gone. >>

________________

The airline vouchers Logan gave her for Christmas burn a hole in her dresser drawer for nearly four months. Veronica’s first thought, of course, is to give them to her father. He’s been to visit her twice for short trips since she moved to New York—once when she first moved out and once toward the end of her first year of law school. Both times they’d had fun doing the daddy-daughter tourist thing; baseball games, museums, the Central Park zoo for nostalgia’s sake.

He hasn’t been since the crash, though. Not since her recent return to criminal work. It’s hard to picture him visiting now and—what?—helping her investigate for the clinic? Approving of all of her life choices?

_Agreeing to take you on as a partner? Nope. Not ready for that conversation yet._

In the end, Veronica decides to just let sleeping dogs lie; the Mars family personal motto, so different from their professional one. She’ll see him in a few months for graduation, anyway.

Of her other candidates for the vouchers, Wallace has also been to New York a few times before but Mac never has. When Veronica makes the offer, her friend jumps eagerly at the opportunity for a four day visit, happy to make the drive down to San Diego from Silicon Valley where she works for Sun MicroSystems in exchange for free airline tickets.

They set a weekend in early April. Mac shows up at the door of Veronica’s apartment travel-rumpled and cranky and Veronica remembers instantly why they are such good friends. It’s been over two years since they have actually seen each other in person. Mac looks chic—hair in an edgy choppy chin-length cut with streaks of platinum blonde—and happier, more settled, than Veronica recalls her being. And it’s Mac, of course, so there’s significantly less of a desire for the grand tourist-iana experience than there was from her dad or from Logan. Instead, they spend Mac’s first day in the city hanging out in Veronica’s apartment and bantering over a classic movie marathon on TCM. The vibe is effortless, and Veronica is relieved at how easy it seems to be to slip back into an old friendship that she is guiltily aware she hasn’t put as much effort into maintaining as she should have. Four hours in, they are sprawled on Veronica’s small couch in their loungewear, watching Jimmy Stewart chase Kim Novak around a bell tower in _Vertigo_.

When the movie had started, Veronica had darted a few anxious looks at Mac, but her friend had seemed unruffled by any resonance between the Hitchcock movie and their past, keeping up the same level of dry commentary as always when she wasn’t absorbed in the movie.

_Well good. Good for her._

As the movie switches from _Vertigo_ to _The African Queen,_ Mac tosses a kernel of popcorn up into the air and catches it in her mouth, executing a small half bow of self-congratulation from her position flat on her back on the couch.

“So, which robot do you want to be this time?”

Off of Veronica’s blank look, Mac rolls her eyes in exasperation.

“MST3K? Mystery Science Theater? Your level of SciFi geek knowledge disappoints once again.”

“Is that like nerd dinner theater?” Veronica puts a finger to her chin in mock thought. “Or, wait. Is that redundant?” 

Mac’s face says it all. “You’re cute when you try. Let’s just watch Bogie.”

Conversation flows lightly throughout that movie and, when it is finally over, Veronica declares them unfit to leave the apartment for dinner and calls out an order to her favorite Thai place.

Over spring rolls, Mac mentions casually that she has another friend in New York who she’s hoping to meet up with for lunch while she’s in town.

Veronica covers her mouth and lets out a small burp. “Piz?”

Mac backs up a few steps, laughing. “No! Jesus, no. Uh, not that Piz is not—um, we did hang out in college a lot and he’s a cool guy, but I’m pretty sure Wallace said his parents are flying out to meet his girlfriend Angelina this weekend. Sounded serious.”

Veronica makes a ‘yikes’ face.

“Anyway, this is a guy I know from my masters program. He’s getting a doctorate at NYU. I, um, mentioned in an email that I would be in town, and…”

“Why Ms. MacKenzie!” Veronica affects a surprised tone. “Is this a guy friend, or a guy _friend,_ if-you-know-what-I-mean?” She waggles her eyebrows suggestively.

Mac blushes hotly, but her tone remains even. “James is a friend. And a guy. And he lives in New York.”

“And if he didn’t?”

“He may be thinking about taking a job at Kane Software after he graduates this spring.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Mac looks down at her fingers in an uncharacteristic sign of emotion. “And, um, I might be too.”

“Really!” This time Veronica’s excitement is genuine.

“Yeah, Sun is fine, but I figure if I’m going to do soulless and corporate I may as well do it close to the ‘rents. And? Their benefits package is a- _maz-_ ing.”

Veronica holds her hand up high and Mac slaps it in a slightly awkward boo-yah move.

“So, you want to come to lunch with me and James?”

“And be the third wheel on your nerd bicycle of a date? No thanks. Actually, I need to run down a witness who has been dodging me. Her landlady told me she’s always off on Saturdays, so that’ll be perfect.” 

Mac’s eyes light up subtly. “Want some help tracking her down?” She wiggles her fingers in the air. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to do some good old-fashioned digging.”

“Nah, thanks. I’d _really_ love it—you could probably save me several hours of tramping from door to door—but this is for the clinic. It’ll go to trial eventually, so everything needs to be completely above board.”

Mac is one of only two people outside of New York—the other is somewhere in the middle of the ocean—who Veronica has talked with about resuming her investigation work.

“How’s that going?”

“Investigating for the clinic? Good. Really good. It’s kind of…restrictive sometimes, the whole coloring inside the lines thing,” Veronica waves her hands through the air dismissively, “but it sure does feel a lot cleaner than snapping shots of a trophy wife doing the nasty at the Camelot.”

Mac holds a shocked hand to her mouth. “Veronica Mars? Clean?”

“I know…I know.” Veronica gathers up the plates and turns around, dumping them in the sink. Over the sound of the rushing water and with her back to Mac, she admits for the first time out loud. “I’m thinking of moving back to Neptune after graduation. Or, well, San Diego anyway.”

“Ah…Logan?”

“Yeah, partially.” She turns around, leaning against the sink and bringing her hands together with overly-exaggerated pep. “And, of course, the pleasure of my father’s disapproval.”

Mac leans her hip against the counter. “Wow. You back in town…and me, maybe. Wallace working at Neptune High. Do you think the universe is ready?”

Veronica’s smile feels feral, familiar. “Not on your life.”

________________

 

 

> To:  Logan Echolls <logan.echolls@us.navy.mil>  
>  From: Veronica Mars <vmars@gmail.com>  
>  Sent:  Friday, April 10th, 2015  
>  Subject: Times Veronica almost tased someone today
> 
> The following have come dangerously near being forcibly jolted into being better human beings:
> 
>   1. That mouthy barista at the coffee place in the Student Union…again.
>   2. A witness I was interviewing for a clinic case who swear-to-god called me “lady” six times in the course of a three minute conversation.
>   3. Two giant guys blocking the door on the A-train
>   4. A clump of slow-walking tourists.
>   5. The guy in my Law of the Sea class I mentioned. He's getting double tased, actually.
> 

> 
> New York is seriously cruisin’ for a bruisin’ today, for some reason.
> 
> The helpful newsletters I’ve been getting from my very good pal Mrs. Quinn seem to suggest that military loved ones possess deep wells of patience and self-discipline that they draw on to get through long deployments.
> 
> I think you may need another job. Or a better loved one. I’m defective.
> 
> V

________________

 

None of the pilots like night BARCAPs.

Even Logan, who secretly likes night flying more than most—for the sheer rush and solitude of it—can’t really find much to enjoy about spending 0200 to 0400 flying tight circles in a proscribed location. Combat Air Patrol for combat that isn’t happening; searching the sky for a threat that isn’t there.

Sometimes, when times are especially quiet, the Air Boss will let them serve “Ready CAP”—all geared up and prepared to load into planes and be flying in twenty minutes—from the comfort of their Ready Room recliners. This time out, though, some diplomatic something or other between China and Taiwan—over oil rights, Logan thinks—has heightened tensions just enough that they’ve got to strap on the jets and fly in circles with a wary eye in the direction of mainland China, even in the wee small hours of the night.

He’s serving this evolution with Einstein as his backseater and the NFO is quiet in the paraloft as they gear up, shrugging into their harnesses and buckling on the g-suits. Einstein seems a little bleary and sleepy-eyed, so Logan starts up a stream of chatter designed to wake up and energize the younger aviator—despite the fact that he’d much rather be in his rack himself. As they climb the ladder up onto the pitch black flight deck and switch on their flashlights, carefully stepping over tie-down chains and ducking under wing edges, Logan continues to tell the funny story of a port call at Oahu on his first cruise and how he tried to teach a few of the other aviators surfing, with disastrous results.

By the time they’re hooked into their bird and waiting in the take-off queue, Einstein is laughing and joking along with him and seems more awake. There’s a bit of a wait as the deck crew get the aircraft in front of them—two Marine F/A-18 single seaters—sorted and onto the catapults. The delay is unavoidable, since the Marines will be taking the western station, while the two jets from Logan’s squadron take the east.

Logan and Einstein wait with the calm resignation of experience while first the two Marine jets and then Frenchie and his backseater Goodyear take off from Cats 1 and 2. Finally, they taxi forward. Logan eases the nose of the jet up, feeling it catch as the tow bar at the front of the plane hooks into the shuttle mechanism. The blur of a neon light wand waved by the deck crew outside gives him the signal to release the break and then to power up. After shoving the throttles forward—igniting the vibrating raw power of the engines and making the machine around him strain forward eagerly—Logan sweeps the control stick through its full range one last time. Assured that the controls are all free, he pushes his head back against the head rest and puts his hands up, left hand wrapping around the clutch bar above his head and right flicking off the plane’s external lights—the ready signal for the catapult officer.

There are endless seconds of utter vulnerability while the jet rumbles, begging to be freed. Proper procedure puts the pilot’s hands off of the controls during a catapult launch, to avoid any sudden jerks from the force of the shuttle hurtling the jet. The navy’s top of the line planes basically fly themselves airborne. Launching, recovery, night flight, it’s all difficult, but this may be the most difficult for Logan. The loss of control—even when it is regular and expected—at such a crucial moment.

Finally, seconds later, KAWOOOOMPH! The catapult fires.

The familiar pilot metaphor for launching off of a catapult is that it feels something like an orgasm mixed with a car crash—tremendous, violent pressure and release. Logan’s eyeballs flatten in their sockets and he can feel his internal organs briefly rearranging themselves under the stress of accelerating from zero to one hundred forty miles an hour in mere seconds.

Then the pressure shifts, normalizes, and his hands come down automatically to shape the stick; in control once more. Logan levels off and starts heading toward the rendezvous point to meet up with Frenchie and Goodyear in the lead jet.

“Uh, Hawk Zero-two?” The call comes in an unfamiliar voice over the internal radio channel.

Einstein triggers the radio from the WSO seat. “Hawk Zero-two, copy.”

“This is Lightening One-one”—the flight lead of the Marine jet section that had taken off immediately before them—“Uh, we’ve lost contact with Lightening One-two and so has the tower. Do you have any visual?”

The hair on the back of Logan’s neck stands up. He quickly sweeps his gaze around the night sky. Ahead of him, he can see the small pinpricks of the wing and tail lights of Frenchie’s lead jet, but nothing else. Just blackness.

He keys the radio button for the internal cockpit frequency. “I’ve got nothing. Einstein?”

A long pause, and then “Negative, Lightening One-one, we’ve got no visual of your guy. Hawk Zero-one?”

Faint radio crackling and then Goodyear’s voice over the frequency. “Negative visual here.”  

Then Frenchie, “Uh, Mouth, the tower wants us to split. I’ll stay on station, you go to Lightening One-two’s last coordinates. Take a look around.”  

“Roger that, Zero-one.”

As Logan cuts his jet into a banking turn while Einstein gets the exact coordinates from the remaining Marine pilot, he can feel a cold chill run down his spine.

This is bad.

_______________

 

It’s a long night for all concerned. Logan’s passes over the area where the jet was last tracked turn up a big, fat inky void of nothing—no surprise there really—and within minutes the search and rescue teams are in motion. Once the SAR helicopters arrive, with their choppy rotors and bright streaming spotlights, the Air Boss sends Logan and Einstein back over to rendezvous with Frenchie at their original station and fly the BARCAP while the search continues without them.

If there is a situation more frustrating than flying pointless circles in the air miles away from where a fellow pilot has gone missing, Logan can’t think of one right then. Worse, uncertainty over the cause of the missing jet heightens their alert status and a tanker is sent up to top off the two Hornets so that they can fly a four-hour BARCAP pattern, rather than the originally scheduled two.

By the time Logan is wearily unhooking from his rig down on the flight deck, the sun is beginning to come up, painting the sky and the ocean below it in delicate shades of pink.  Against the glowing bowl of the horizon, the SAR helicopters are charcoal black shadows.

It’s a long day onboard the carrier. Regular flight ops are suspended and SAR operations continue all through the day. Not a trace of either the jet or the Marine piloting it is found. Logan’s squad, the Shadow Hawks, maintains a friendly rivalry with the Marine Thunderbolt squadron who are in the Ready Room right next door to theirs. Generally the relationship consists of lots of insults—half joking, half not—flung back and forth, and informal competitions. Today, though, a heavy pall hangs over both squadrons. The missing pilot was a young nugget on his first cruise. Just twenty-five.

There is some grim laughter in the Hawks’ Ready Room when they realize that none of them can remember the pilot’s actual name, just his call sign: Fungus.

“Fungus?”

“Fuck you new guy, you suck,” Logan tells Turd, their own first cruise nugget, with a wry twist of his mouth. 

He watches the younger man’s face as he works mentally through the acronym and then starts to momentarily light up with the appreciation of a good call sign, before registering the circumstances. “Oh. Ouch.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it was meant lovingly.”

As the day and the search stretches on, with no sightings and no new information, what little hope might have existed starts to wear away.

No one saw the jet go down and the Navy will probably never figure out exactly why it did. All of the pilots in the air wing know what happened, though. They know it in their gut. The jet disappeared at the time right after take-off when a pilot is most distracted by the mundane duties of getting the cockpit underway: retracting the gear and flaps, checking radio frequencies, setting all of the instrumentation. These basic chores can be a dangerous distraction from the most important duty of the pilot—keeping the plane out of the water. Nighttime, pitch-black, no perceptible horizon, the black void of the ocean mimicking the black void of the sky, a distracted pilot could miss the instruments registering the downward tilt of the jet’s nose, the loss in altitude. There would be no warning, just the impact of a mass of metal hurtling at over two hundred miles an hour straight into the surface of the ocean.

They were never going to find that pilot.

Still, they look. It’s not until a full seventy-two hours after the disappearance—with not a single piece of debris found—that the SAR efforts are officially called off.

Fungus is missing, presumed dead, and so is his jet.

That night, as the carrier idles off the coast of Taiwan, Logan makes his solitary way up to the flight deck. It’s late—recoveries have finished for the night—and the flattop is as quiet as it ever gets and largely deserted. Here and there are sailors standing watch, or clusters of airmen talking softly, but Logan dodges them all and heads to the side of the deck. He settles himself in a semi-comfortable position sitting on the edge of the carrier, wind buffeting his body as the water slides away far below, unseen in the black night. He leans his shoulder and the side of his head against the large, boxy partition jutting up from the deck. Ever since the Family Day this is where he comes when he wants to be alone, think…remember.

He doesn't actually remember the pilot who died all that much, though. With a few exceptions, Logan mostly socializes with the other pilots in his squad, and all he can bring to mind of Fungus—Brad McClintock, from Ashton, Oklahoma—is an impression of height and blonde hair.

_What were those last moments like? Did he know what was happening, right at the end? Were there seconds of awareness, or was it just swift oblivion?_

Logan’s thoughts turn to his own accident and he flattens his hand against the steel wall next to him, feeling the rough pebbles imbedded in the flat gray paint push against his palm. He can remember his instruments failing—shrill alarms, flashing lights—and the smoke filling his cockpit. What he doesn't remember is the moment of decision to pull the eject cord. _What did that feel like? How did I know to do it?_ Was it training, or some deeply felt survival instinct, or sheer pants-wetting terror? Hell, he probably did wet his pants. He wouldn’t know. His mind is a blank—no memory of the seat exploding beneath him, or the barely controlled free fall in his half-opened parachute, or impact with the hard desert floor. No memory of anything, just that initial moment of fear and realization, then blackness, then…Veronica.

He closes his eyes against the ache. Far below him the rhythmic hiss and chop of the carrier plowing through the water continues.

Is this really what he wants from his life; constantly leaving or getting ready to leave the one person whose own absence devastated him for six years? Veronica, thousands of miles away for months at a time? Himself, alone on a boat staring at the black water and aching to touch her? Staring at the stars like some cartoon fucking mouse.

How important is the military—the flying—really to him? No matter what, he can’t do it forever. Even the best aviators only last until their mid-forties before they have to start flying a desk or retire. Is he really willing to spend half of their young lives away from her, chasing a joy that is temporary anyway?

But what would he be without it? The Navy has shaped him; made him into a man. It’s easy for Logan to see the job as good—strong, upstanding—but himself…sometimes that still feels a little hard to swallow.

His thoughts are jumbled, jumping around, contradicting each other, but one thought keeps reoccurring: they’ve already lost so much time. So much time apart. Six years.

_God, I just want to hear her voice right now._

Since the SAR missions were called off, they have steamed a little closer in to shore and are only maybe a mile or two off the coast of Taiwan. Logan pulls out his cell phone. After four months of disuse, it feels strange in his hands. A lot of the guys don’t even bother bringing them on deployment, there’s no way to make a call – no cell phone towers at sea – and, when they are close enough to shore to potentially catch a signal, the twin threats of giant roaming bills and the Navy’s prohibition on contact through unofficial channels are enough to keep most guys to email and the few satellite pay phones on board. Usually Logan doesn’t bring his phone either, but this deployment he was tempted by the full file of pictures and videos he has saved. He’s kept the phone charged and has looked through the camera roll a few times on particularly hard nights. Always when they were far enough out to sea that there was no chance of any problems. Tonight they are on full communications lock down – river city – because of the accident. They don’t want word to get out before the Navy’s official story is pulled together. Looking at the pictures he has saved won’t constitute a violation of OPSEC, though, right?  He’s pretty sure they’re not close enough to shore to catch a signal anyway.

Huddling his body around the phone to hide the glow of the screen, he thumbs the phone on. As soon as the phone powers up, he clicks eagerly through to his camera roll. He’s staring wistfully at a picture of Veronica caught mid-laugh on the subway, when miraculously his phone picks up a signal and the voicemails start to roll in.

 

________________

April is a shitty month. New York spends weeks drenched in sheets of gloomy gray rain, the clinic gets what seems like an unending stream of child abuse cases, Veronica’s Juvenile Justice professor returns one of her papers, asking her to re-write a section, she goes eight days—EIGHT DAYS—without any word from Logan, and in the middle of the month her period starts unexpectedly, a week early and in the middle of the night.

She’s down in the laundry room when the call comes in.

Her sheets, stained with the splotchy vengeance of Mother Nature, are swirling hypnotically through the washer cycle as Veronica squirms on the hard plastic chair and attempts to get some reading done for Immigration Law and Policy. Between the hard seat, the bloating, and the cramps radiating down her inner thighs, she’s having a difficult time keeping her focus on the case law.

And it’s there, mid-cramp-related-squirm, that her phone begins to ring. As she leans sideways to fish it out of her pocket, her textbook and notepad go sliding off of her lap. She snags the book awkwardly with one hand, clutching it to the side of her thigh as she brings the phone up to her ear and answers impatiently.

“Hello?”

A light hissing and crackling on the other end.

“Hello?” Her tone is brisk and on the edge of biting. _Telemarketers be damned. How did they get this number anyway?_

“Veronica.”

Her textbook and notepad thud down on the cheap tile of the laundry room floor.

“Logan?” She breathes out a startled exhale. “Logan. Hi…I wasn’t expecting a call.”

“Veronica.” Just her name, again, and it’s hard to tell from that but he sounds… She presses the phone closer to her ear.

“Logan, are you okay?”

She can hear him take a deep breath in. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine. I just—how are you?”

He’s barely audible. Leaving her books scattered on the floor and her laundry circling the washing machine, Veronica wanders out into the hallway, stuffing one knuckle into her free ear in an unconscious effort to focus.

“I’m good. Just doing laundry.” She laughs and has no idea why, since nothing is funny right now. This is only the fourth time Logan has been able to call since he’s been on deployment. Each time it has been sweet to hear his voice, but surprisingly awkward, their instinctive rhythm gone. She spends her days saving up words for him, mentally scripting out emails, framing funny stories and amusing rants. When faced with his voice on the other end of the line, though, they all seem to fly away, leaving her with banalities or nonsense.

“Oh.”

There’s a silence she can’t seem to help rushing to fill. “Where are you? I didn’t think you guys had any liberty scheduled. Your last email…”

Finally he starts to talk, words tripping over each other uncharacteristically. “I’m actually—we’re—yeah, I probably shouldn’t say exactly, but we’re not that far away from where we were last time you and I talked.”

“Oh. So you’re not at a hotel?” She’s pressing the phone against her ear so hard that it hurts a bit, but he’s still faint.

“No. Listen, something…something happened. On the carrier. You’ll probably hear about it soon. We’re actually not—we’re on communications lockdown, but we’re close to shore and I had my cell phone out and I got some signal, so I just thought—I didn’t want—”

“Wait.” Veronica interrupts his ramble, “you’re on your cell phone?” She pulls her own phone away from her ear briefly and, sure enough, the familiar contact picture is displayed. “I thought you didn’t take it with you.”

“I don’t usually.”

“Oh.” _The messages._ “Listen…”

Logan’s voice is coming through a little clearer now. It’s stark. “Something bad happened, Veronica. Another pilot died. He went into the water a few days ago. I didn’t know him really or anything, but yeah—“

The pressure behind her breastbone is tight, almost overwhelming. “Shit Logan, you’re okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. I wasn’t…I was never in any danger.”

Hysterical laughter would probably not be the best response to that statement. She closes her eyes. “I’m so sorry. Who was it?”

“You don’t know him. A Marine. Brad McClintock. This was his first cruise.” Logan’s words are choppy and his voice hollow. She can’t see him, can’t evaluate his state of mind. Her own heart is racing, the adrenaline of talking to him mixed with the sharp bite of fear, ever-present, but suddenly thrust sharply to the forefront.

“Logan, I…” Words won’t come—they simply will not form—as though language is alien to her. Finally, she blurts out, “I wish you were here.”

“Me, too. Veronica, when I turned my phone on…” The words are a raw whisper. “I miss you so much.”

His voice sounds like it’s coming from a million miles away. _He is a million miles away_. And suddenly there are tears rolling down her cheeks. Tears, goddammit, and Veronica hasn’t really cried over anything since he woke up from the coma, not even when he deployed, so she doesn’t know why her body has decided _now_ is an option. She’s not even in the shower.

Suddenly there is a loud clang and then muffled voices in the background on Logan’s end.

He comes back on the line, sounding sharper and a little more normal. “Veronica? Veronica I’m sorry. I’ve got to go. I just got your messages and wanted to…didn’t want you to…”

She can’t keep the tears off her face, but she can damn well keep them out of her voice.

“It’s okay. Hey, Logan? Tell me something happy.”

There is a long, long pause. So long that she almost thinks the connection has been cut and then finally, sure and firm. “I love you.”

She presses her thumb hard against the corner of her eye. “Oh. Yeah. I suppose that counts.”

________________

 

> To:  Veronica Mars <vmars@gmail.com>  
>  From:  Logan Echolls <logan.echolls@us.navy.mil>  
>  Sent:  Monday, April 13th, 2015  
>  Subject: Stand down
> 
> Take it easy, tiger. I promise I didn't get in any trouble for the phone call. I'm sorry - I didn't realize you could hear the commotion on my end. It was just Cheese, nothing to worry about. You know he would never narc on me for something like that. He's got my back, pitiful though I may be at times. I really appreciate the fact that you do too, Veronica. 
> 
> Sorry this is a quick one - didn't want you to think you needed to fly out here and break me out of the brig. Next time I've got a minute to sit down there's a funny story coming your way about what they've been serving in the dirty shirt wardroom this week. 
> 
> Love, 
> 
> Logan
> 
> ________________

 

“Argh!” Veronica throws down her electric hand-mixer in disgust and it ricochets off the counter with a loud clatter. She glares at it. “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, buddy.”

It's a Friday night in late April, about two weeks after Logan’s call, and she’s attempting to bake her weekly batch of cookies. Classic snickerdoodles, a recipe she’s known by heart since middle school, but tonight everything seems to keep going wrong.

First the flour was clumpy and then when she cracked the egg—directly into the bowl with the other wet ingredients, because who wants to wash an extra?—it had a giant vein-y red blood clot in it. Veronica shudders and makes a face thinking about it.

She’d had to start over, which necessitated running down to the bodega for more eggs—this time hopefully with no special surprise included—and waiting impatiently for more butter to soften. Now, to complete the shitstorm, her crappy little electrical mixer has finally given up the ghost. The tiny motor had overheated, jerking and stuttering in her hand as it fought manfully against insufficiently softened butter.

Staring into the bowl, she briefly considers just giving up and going to bed, but she shakes it off.

“Sleep is for the weak.” She cracks her knuckles and speaks out loud to the empty apartment. “Time to tackle this the old fashioned way, Veronica. Like your pioneer ancestors—big, strapping women named Bertha and Helga. They didn’t need electricity.”

After taping the beaters of the defunct mixer against the bowl to remove the remaining chunks of butter, she tosses the machine into the trashcan.

 _Farewell, not-so-faithful companion_ ; _it’s been a long deployment for me, too._

Grabbing a large mixing spoon, Veronica starts to hand-mix the butter into submission. It’s getting late—almost ten-thirty after all the running around she’s done—and she is exhausted.

While mixing, her mind skips ahead to the next steps. Two batches in the oven; nine minutes each. She’ll freeze the cookies overnight and then vacuum-seal them in the morning. Through trial-and-error and Logan’s reports, she’s found that this produces the best results on the other end.

Butter finally fully incorporated, Veronica grabs the flour sifter. It is a lot of effort, she acknowledges wryly to herself, for cookies that may not even reach their intended recipient on time. She’s spent enough time trolling the squad’s Family Readiness Group facebook page to know that at this point in the deployment sending mail can be a little bit of a crap shoot. There’s just under a month to go and, given the amount of time it takes packages to find their way on board, these cookies could quite possibly wind up getting forwarded to Logan’s condo in San Diego after he’s arrived home.

 _My BFF Cindy Quinn_ , she thinks, in the sarcastically exuberant internal voice she uses for the head of the FRG, _would know exactly to the minute how long these cookies would take to get to him_. For some reason, Veronica has developed a slight complex surrounding Logan’s CO’s wife, who she’s never actually met. Logan thinks her husband is a blowhard, but the woman’s emails project nothing but competence and friendliness. Even so, Veronica can’t help picture her as the sort of aggressively tanned and toned soon-to-be-divorcee who would hire Mars Investigations to get the money shot. _Bangles on her bony wrists and salmon-colored capri pants, dyed blonde hair in sleek bob._

She shakes the thought off as she sets the mixing spoon down. _Stop it Veronica. She’s probably a perfectly nice woman._

Ingredients at last mixed into a dough, Veronica grabs the cinnamon and starts to shake it out onto a plate where a small pile of sugar waits.

When she’d asked Logan to punch Mrs. Quinn’s contact information in to her phone before Christmas, she hadn’t realized that he would also give the woman her email address. The newsletters were a surprise when they first started showing up in her inbox. The information they contain is mostly irrelevant to her, since a lot of it is geared to San Diego based families, but they do provide a lovely moment of cognitive dissonance each month. _Hey! Remember that there’s this whole other group of people also missing their loved ones right now._ It’s a weird, almost intrusive, addition to what she usually thinks of as her own private pain.

She couldn’t resist signing up for the group’s page, although she’d had to create a facebook account to do so. Mostly it consisted of posts about upcoming events and links to resources. Occasionally pictures from onboard the carrier appeared—enlisted men in brown shirts checking over the jets, a group shot of the entire squadron, Logan tiny in the back. After the death of the Marine pilot, there had been several grief and counseling resources shared. Veronica had logged off of that particular browsing session immediately and struggled to return the giant black monster of her fear to its usual position, locked away in the recesses of her mind. Recent late night forays into the world of the FRG have revealed a lot of comments sharing Pinterest projects—“Welcome Home Daddy!” banners, DIY accessories in the squad’s colors, Etsy shops that will make toddler-sized flight suits—overwhelming the more practical advice. It’s all very nice and earnest and very…foreign.

Foreign in a way she doesn’t want to ever become familiar. She doesn’t want that kind of life.

And yet, here she is, making cookies. Veronica rolls the tip of her finger in the cinnamon-sugar mixture she is spreading on a plate and sucks it off, absently.

 _More sugar_.

She doesn’t want a carefully choreographed homecoming for Logan— _or do I? Does he?_ —she’s pretty much just concerned with checking to make sure that he’s in one piece and then teasing him mercilessly until her drags her to the nearest flat surface and has his way with her.

_I’m thinking…badass outfit and a wicked smile. Just the way he likes._

Veronica shapes a ball of dough and rolls it through the cinnamon-sugar. The timing of this deployment has actually been lucky. The carrier is due back four days after her graduation from Columbia. Just enough time for her to fly out and be in San Diego when it docks. The logistics are do-able, if a bit tight time-wise.

Veronica grimaces, thinking back on the awkward phone conversation with her father two weeks ago when she’d dropped the news that she was planning to move back to California permanently once law school was done. Keith had been hard to read in his usual bland way. _Even over the phone, the man’s poker face is unparalleled._ But when she’d mentioned the California Bar Exam, she’d felt an infinitesimal relaxation coming down the line.

She hadn’t brought up working as a PI again. He knew she’d gotten a license and taken the occasional case out here in New York, but Veronica was pretty sure he had no idea about the scope of her investigative activities over the last school year.

She definitely hadn’t mentioned the vaguely formed plans that had been flitting through her head of coming back to work at Mars Investigations. _Work with him, not for him. How would that go? Could we even do it?_

It should be possible to do both, right? Take the Bar, be a lawyer, and also work with her dad? Why couldn’t Mars Investigations contract out with a legal clinic somewhere in San Diego?

_Yeah, might need to ease him into that._

It has nothing to do with her own desire to avoid the subject. Nope. No siree.

Veronica rolls the last of the dough balls through the topping and gives them a visual check over. Setting the timer for nine minutes, she slides the cookie sheet in and closes the oven door, leaning her hip against the counter.

She idly watches the timer tick down the seconds, counting off herself—minutes, hours, days, weeks until her dad and graduation. Until California. Until Logan. Until home.

________________

 

May finally arrives, marking a little over two weeks until the carrier docks in San Diego. In a week they’ll stop in Hawaii for a day of liberty and then home. The mood on board has shifted considerably as the day-to-day slog gives way to a sense of the light at the end of the tunnel.

Today the air wing is running its last full day of flight ops at sea. The ocean has been choppy all day and the landing conditions are less than ideal. To say the least.

Logan and several other aviators are gathered around the PLAT—the television mounted in the Ready Room that shows a deck level view of planes landing—and watching the last few suckers aloft try to bring their jets down onto the heaving deck.

The task is undeniably dangerous, trying to park the jet on what looks like a postage stamp from the air is tricky enough when it’s standing still, let alone when it is pitching distinctly up and down, but the atmosphere of the group is boisterous in defiance of the danger. On the screen, the crosshairs that indicate the level of the deck bob up and down, and the tiny figure of the approaching aircraft moves in and out of position.

Like spectators in a bar, they catcall and predict and whoop, watching their fellow pilots navigate the difficult landings. Someone has even made a big bowl of popcorn and everyone crowds around, voices overlapping. Currently on approach, the squadron’s Commanding Officer, James Quinn.

“Look at him now! That looks beauuutiful. Nice.”

“Nah, he’s low on the ball. See it?”

“Doc’ll get on.”

“A little power…he’s in there…he’s in there…”

“OH!”

“Ooh, bolter!”

On the monitor, the night vision scene shows the Hornet missing the arresting wires that should have stopped it cold. The slim tailhook extending from the plane skips along the deck, sending up showers of sparks, before the aircraft shoots back up into the sky to circle around for another pass.

A hail of popcorn kernels fly at the screen.

Normally Logan might greet the bolter with a small mental smirk—Quinn’s boarding rate has gone steadily downhill all cruise and he dislikes the guy—but he’s only half an hour back from his own by-the-skin-of-his-teeth landing and he’s still feeling small tremors run through his body. He doesn’t wish it on anyone.

_Not a good afternoon to be out._

The next plane is on approach (“Stay with it!” “Power!” “Steady, steady.” “She’s bingo on the ball.”) when a Petty Officer pokes her head through the door. “Is Lt. Echolls in here?” Logan turns toward her and raises his hand in acknowledgement. “Your XO asked me to tell you to come see him in his stateroom. He said it’s official.”

 

________________

 

 

> To: Veronica Mars <vmars@gmail.com>  
>  From: Cynthia Quinn <cquinn@vfa82frg.gov>  
>  Sent: Saturday, May 2nd, 2015  
>  Subject: Family Readiness Group Newsletter: May 2015
> 
> Well, Shadow Hawk families, the countdown is on until the end of deployment. As of right now we are on target to welcome VFA-82 home in 18 days!
> 
> We all know that in the Navy schedules can and do change at a moment’s notice. Our facebook page has tips for how to handle talking about returning home with children of various ages. Those of you with little ones know that sometimes a big surprise can be better than tears and disappointment when plans change.
> 
> For those of you with family members participating in the fly-in, please be sure to contact Amanda DuPre to sign up for a covered dish to bring.
> 
> Warmest regards,
> 
> Cindy Quinn,  
>  FRG President, VFA-82

________________

 

Giddy, Veronica pushes the doors of Green Hall open with an emphatic shove that sends her messenger bag swinging against her hip. The bright May sunshine seems to match her mood as she bursts out of the building, friends Joan and Katy trailing slightly behind her.

Katy laughs a bright peal of a laugh as she hits the bottom of the steps. “We’re done! Last final of law school officially complete!”

“Ha!” Veronica spins around to face the building and blows a big kiss at the massive sculpture mounted over the entrance. “So long, ugly ass Pegasus!” She sticks her pointer fingers in the air and does a small shimmy dance as the three girls walk around the corner of Amsterdam Avenue. “And it only took three years and a tuition roughly equivalent to the GDP of a small county to get here! Who run the world?”

Joan and Katy hip check each other in celebration and Katy bounces a little on her toes. “I know it’s only 3:15, but…The Publick?”

Veronica makes a disappointed face. “Can’t. You’ll have to get shitfaced at this entirely inappropriate hour by yourselves.”

Joan throws her head back in disgust, smooth black hair bouncing against her shoulders. “Come on, Veronica! Driiiiiinks!”

“Nope. I’ve got a super fun evening of packing planned. My dad is coming in tomorrow and I won’t have any time after he gets here.” Because in two days it’s graduation and then home to San Diego, where Logan’s carrier will be docking in eleven days. She smiles at the thought.

Katy shakes her head. “You suck. Joan’s got my back, don’t you Joan?” They fist bump.

The three girls linger at the corner of Amsterdam and 116th. Veronica nods her head down Amsterdam. “You guys coming back to Lenfast before embarking on your mid-afternoon debauchery?”

“No. We’re going to cut through Morningside campus first. I need to hit the bookstore and pick up some Columbia swag for my little sister. She comes in tomorrow.”

The law building is right across the street from one of the main entrances to the center of campus and a big rush of underclassmen are waiting at the crosswalk, looking similarly excited. One of the big lecture classes must have just finished a final. The light changes and Veronica waves at her two friends, hoisting the strap of her bag higher on her shoulder and turning to go, thoughts already on her packing.

She is held up by Joan’s hand on her elbow.

“Uh, Veronica? When did you say your boyfriend is due home again?”

“Two weeks.”

“Um…” Joan increases the pressure on her arm and Veronica turns automatically in the direction her friend is pointing, across the street to a figure leaning on the old fashioned lamppost stationed near the crosswalk. 

There’s a moment of disconnect. Of, ‘Nope. That person in the slightly rumpled travel khakis can not possibly be in this place at this time.’

Her body is moving forward before she fully figures it out. Logan must be running too, because somewhere in the middle of the street they smash awkwardly into each other. He grabs her tightly, lifting her off her feet, and carries them the short distance back onto the sidewalk just as a taxi cab honks its horn in warning.

Mouths blindly seeking, they connect in a searing kiss that reverberates through her. _Oh god, he’s here he’s here he’s here._ Veronica pulls back the smallest inch, Logan’s arms still tight around her, his cheek pressed against the top of her head.

“You’re early. You asshole.” She yanks on the lapels of his uniform blouse. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry.” He gasps into her hair. “I’m so sorry. I was at your apartment, but I couldn’t wait.”

“No, what are you doing _here_. In New York.” She is lightheaded with shock, her feet still hovering inches off the pavement, and dimly aware that this is definitely not the coolly sexy demeanor she had planned to present at their reunion.

“I flew off the carrier yesterday. They assigned me some logistical duties that mean I need to be in San Diego ahead of the squad. This little side trip is maybe…slightly unauthorized, but I have two days before I really need to be there. Stink told me to take my time. I couldn’t miss graduation.”

God it’s Logan Logan Logan Logan, all of a sudden after all of these months. He feels _so good_.

Veronica huffs out a laugh and smacks him—hard—on the shoulder before swinging her legs up to lock around his waist, clutching tightly, so tightly. Pulling him into a full body embrace with arms and legs and hands full of uniform and everything that is in her.

“I missed you.” She whispers into his neck, and his whole body shudders inside her grasp. “God, I’m so glad you’re home safe.”

“I promised.”

She pulls back a little again, looking into his face. He’s tanner than when he left, the creases by his eyes etched deeper and his hair lighter and painfully short. He leans forward to kiss her again, mouth familiar and warm, and she’s lost for another long moment.

When the fog finally clears, Veronica can faintly hear the “aww”ing chorus that has broken out behind them at what she is becoming aware is an uncomfortably public display. _Jesus. We’re like a Hallmark movie come to life_.

The vendor at the hot dog cart behind them lets out an encouraging whoop and she unlocks her legs, sliding back down to the ground.

“Logan,” she murmurs sweetly in his ear as he reluctantly lets her go. “If we wind up in one of those sappy soldier-returns-home YouTube compilations, I am going to kill you. You will be dead.”

“I had our soundtrack all picked out and everything.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The crash described in this chapter is very loosely based on a real incident described in Robert Gandt’s _Bogeys and Bandits_ , involving a young Marine Captain. 
> 
> The law clinic Veronica works at is modeled heavily on the [Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem](http://www.ndsny.org/), which does in fact partner with Columbia’s law school for an “externship” class that is highly coveted and competitive. The actual class lasts a full academic year, instead of Veronica’s semester. The case of Tre the accused armed robber which I’ve described is loosely based around an actual case NDS detailed in one of their reports.
> 
> I am 100% certain that between the naval information and the law school/ legal information I have screwed up at least one thing royally. I sincerely apologize for my failings! 
> 
> Extra special thanks to the lovely **marshmallowtasha** for 1) Beta-ing this monster of a chapter amidst a tremendous amount of other things going on in her life; 2) threatening to, and I quote, "hunt me down" if I cut the reunion scene and 3) for what is now a YEAR of excellent advice, laughter, and a keen critical eye on my stories. Happy beta-versary dear friend, I couldn't do it without you!
> 
> ETA 6/24/15 - I added a short extra email from Logan after the big phone call to clarify some concerns that commentors had. Thanks so much for the input, all!


	10. June, July & August, 2015

**June, July & August, 2015**

____________

 

Having his daughter back on the same side of the continent is going to take some adjustment.

Two weeks after Veronica moves back to Southern California, Keith unlocks the door of Mars Investigations one morning to find her sitting, uninvited and unexpected, at the secretary’s desk. She's flipping through a case file and his heart gives a little stutter at the sight, but long years of law enforcement and marriage to a closet alcoholic have gifted him with an instinctive and immediate poker face.

He raises his eyebrows at Veronica, hangs his coat on the rack by the door and walks in the direction of his office. On his way past her, he tosses out, “Sweetie, make a note to call the security place and get a refund for the system.”

Veronica puts the file down on the desk. “Please. This is not a B&E. My recent legal training tells me that people get in trouble for those. I saw you punch in the code last time I was here.”

“Veronica, that was nearly a year ago.”

She points at herself: “Chip.” At him: “Block,” and returns to perusing the file.  Looking down at the papers, she adds, “and Block, you should _really_ change that code more often.”

_Dammit._

Keith plants his hands flat on the desk and Veronica looks up. “Veronica, please, _please_ tell me that you didn’t spend tens of thousands of dollars on a top flight legal education just to wind up back at the same desk you had in high school.”

She twirls a pen around between her fingers, points it at him. “One: this is not the same desk; it’s not even the same office. Two: I would certainly never tell you that.”

He narrows his eyes at her, but before he can probe further, she pats the large bar review book resting next to her on the desk.

“I’ll need to work part time hours until the exam in July so that I can study. California’s Bar is even harder than New York’s.”

Keith can feel his shoulders relax a little. It’s not that he doesn’t want to work with her—his daughter, the best partner he’s ever had—it’s just that he doesn’t want her to wake up one day like him; old and run down by this town. But if she’s taking the bar, planning to get a big lawyering job eventually, then maybe it’s okay to have this temporarily. Enjoy it a little, just like the old days.

He surveys Veronica and takes in her air of assurance layered with contentment.

_But better, because this time she’s happy._

“Take a look at the Quan file. It’s somewhere in that pile over there.” He waves his hand vaguely at a stack of papers on top of the filing cabinet. “The new sheriff—“

Veronica rolls her eyes. “I can’t believe Neptune elected _another_ Lamb.”

“Yeah.” He purses his lips. “Fool me once... Anyway. Mrs. Quan doesn’t think he’s taking her reports of vandalism at her store very seriously. Wants us to look into it.”

“I’ve got it.”

He knows she does.

______________

To the extent that she’d thought about it, Veronica had assumed that when she moved home she would be, well, home. But homecoming has turned out to be a longer process than she’d planned.

It doesn’t take long after returning to realize that San Diego and Logan’s condo are just as she left them; beautiful and spacious and not hers.

Several months before, when Veronica had broached the idea of moving back to California to him via email, Logan had responded eagerly to the plan.  The unspoken assumption was that they would live together just like the previous summer, rather than Veronica living with her father or getting a place of her own, but they hadn’t discussed a lot of the details. Logan was deployed and Veronica had sort of fallen into the habit of avoiding big discussions while he was away. In addition to not being recommended by several of the Navy blogs she’d stalked, talking out thorny, complex issues in emails didn’t appeal to her at all. Plus she’s used to making decisions on her own.

She’d left New York in such a flurry of major life events that she’d never quite gotten around to thinking about what that housing arrangement would feel like on the other end. After their dramatic reunion on the streets of New York, she’d dragged Logan back to her apartment and they’d worked their emotions out on each other in an explosion of ripped clothes and frantic bodies. Once the afterglow had dissipated, she’d found herself lying sweat-suctioned to her very naked, still half-aroused boyfriend, suddenly awake to the realization that her father would be touching down in the city in less than eleven hours. And that, in the forty-eight hours following, she had to first graduate from law school and then pack up and ship home the entirety of her belongings.

A leisurely reunion it was not, but she and Logan had made the best of it. They'd had sex again, quick and dirty, and then he'd helped her pack. A little more sex. A little more packing. A brief break for food and then a little sex on top of the packing.

She’d had to pry open the windows to let the apartment air out before her father showed up late the following evening.

Logan had stayed for her graduation ceremony but had to leave for San Diego almost immediately thereafter. The numerous duties he’d been given in preparation for the return of the aircraft carrier and his deployed squadron kept him extremely busy until several days after Veronica arrived on the west coast. By the time he was able to come up for air, she was installed in his condo, the majority of her belongings still in boxes in one of the spare rooms, waiting for her to unpack.

Now, three weeks in and the beginnings of a routine establishing itself, Veronica has realized that the living situation is not ideal. Her natural instinct, though, is to avoid anything that could turn into A Talk. Things are _fine_. The condo is _beautiful_. It’s not like she was especially unhappy staying here last summer. So why is this such a big deal?

 _That was vacation. This is…permanent._                               

Logan is definitely not going to bring it up. He’s happily oblivious, if a little withdrawn at times. His squad in full stand-down mode, putting him effectively on vacation. As long as she’s there, Veronica is pretty sure he won’t see any need to rock the boat.

She’s given herself a few weeks to stew it all over in her mind, but now the time has come.  Veronica is curled up in a corner of the couch, idly watching Logan while he watches the X Games on TV. He’s in old boxers and a well-worn t-shirt, his bare feet up on the coffee table. He looks so comfortable. At home. Yesterday she’d felt a weird pang of anxiety over using the washing machine without checking with him first.

She blurts out, “Logan, how attached are you to this condo?”  
  
Logan lowers the beer he’d been taking a long pull of and looks around in surprise, as though registering his surroundings for the first time. “Not very. I leased this place because it was relatively close to base and a guy leaving the squad was looking to hand it off.” He looks at her, gaze sharpening. “Why? You want something closer to Neptune?”

Veronica nods. “And maybe someplace a little more…normal. My sized.” She’s fighting the instinct to get up. Move around. Maybe put the dishes away. Anything to not look at him while they have this talk.

“Normal?” Logan reaches for the remote and turns off the TV. “This place doesn’t exactly have marble floors.”

“No, but—“

“It’s only three bedrooms. No bowling alley. No fancy chandeliers.” His tone is still mild, but the hand that waves dramatically through the air is a sure cue that that wasn’t casual sarcasm.

 _Stay put, Veronica. Stay put._ “Logan, your luxury condo has a balcony with an ocean view and a hot tub. It’s over two thousand square feet. It’s fancy.”

Logan sets his beer bottle down on the glass coffee table with a deliberate clink. “I didn’t realize that my status as man of the people was in jeopardy. I’m glad you pointed it out.”

Veronica sighs, unable to keep a small edge of sharpness out of her tone. “Am I offending you?”

He runs a hand over his face, deflates a little. “Kind of? I guess I just don’t get it. This isn’t some massive mansion—you know I’d hate that almost as much as you would—it’s just got a lot of nice amenities.” His eyebrows knit together as he looks at her. “What do you mean by normal? Am I going to be limiting myself to five minute showers like at your old apartment?”

She can tell he’s trying to scale down the emotion, keep things calm. The result, though, is him studying her in a way that gets under her skin and itches at her. _Figure out the poverty stricken girlfriend. Why does Cinderella want to return to the hearth?_

She shakes off the tiny scared-teen Veronica who is whispering in her ear with determination. “Normal isn’t the right word, exactly. I just mean…something I can afford a little better. Maybe closer to Neptune.”

He scoots closer to her on the couch and takes her hands. “Veronica, we can move wherever you want. It makes sense for you to be closer to your father and I don’t mind a little more of a drive.”

Some of the tension seems to flow out of the conversation when they touch. He rubs his thumb lightly along the top of hers. For so long he was far away—a voice on the other end of the phone, an email boyfriend—and now he’s here. Really here. It still seems surreal. Veronica squeezes his hands gratefully and retreats into teasing, “Want to see what that shiny new Beemer convertible can do on the PCH?” Logan’s welcome-home-from-deployment present to himself has been the subject of much snarking on Veronica’s part.

“You know it.” Logan grins saucily, but returns quickly to the subject at hand, playing with Veronica’s fingers. “We can move anywhere, but I still wish you wouldn’t worry about ‘affording’ anything. If we’re going to be living together it makes sense to combine our accounts. Pay for big things _together_ , like housing, cars—“ He tilts his head in the direction of the parking spot that holds the gently used Mazda he loathes, and then hesitates momentarily before continuing. “Your loans.”

This is where things have gone nuclear in the past. Carefully keeping her tone gentle, Veronica shakes her head. “No, Logan.”

He closes his eyes. “Not ever?”

“Not…now.”

Logan exhales and opens his eyes. “Will you at least think about it? Keeping everything separate makes me—” He breaks off and she can hear the echo of their fight from last year in his silence. Veronica knows that he’s been working hard since then to trust her a little more in regards to their relationship. His emails over the deployment had been noticeably lacking any mentions, joking or otherwise, of her leaving or being gone. In return Veronica has been doing some very careful—if not very fruitful—considering of the money situation. It’s one of the reasons she forced herself to actually have this conversation, rather than just stew in silent resentment, as was her first inclination.

She squeezes his fingers again and then lets go, breaking eye contact and allowing herself that much of a retreat, although she keeps her butt planted firmly on the couch. “I _will_ think about it. I am.”

“What—can you just try to tell me what the problem is? I promise I won’t freak out like last time. I just don’t get it.” He opens his mouth like he wants to say something else, but then presses his lips together and fixes her with an expectant stare.

“Okay, I—“ Veronica clicks her tongue in frustration. “It’s not the money exactly. It’s…”

 _Flee, Veronica, flee,_ whisper her instincts. _No, fight._ _Distract. Distract._ She shakes her head.

Logan prompts gently, “It’s?”

“I guess it’s feeling dependent. I’ve always done things for myself. Taken care of myself. Ever since my mom left.” She purposely hardens her voice against the wobble she can feel building. _This is why it’s easier to fight about it than talk about it_. “It was pretty necessary, you know. To stand on my own after…everything. Then it just got to be habit, and then I decided I preferred it.”

“Dependent.” Logan repeats carefully, like he’s testing the word, unsure of its meaning.

“This place is yours, Logan. You bought it.” Veronica feels careful too—picking her way through the conversation with an almost painful caution because she can not screw this up. Can not. “I’m just—I don’t dislike this place at all, it’s just all you and not me. I want someplace that is _us_.”

“Us.” He lets out an exhale of breath and visibly relaxes. “That sounds pretty good.” His warm brown eyes search hers, smiling now, more certain. “So…what _is_ us?”

“Well,” she scoots a bit closer on the couch on an upsurge of hope, touching her knee to his. “Someplace a little smaller, maybe. Easier for us to clean by ourselves.”

“No cleaning service?” He squints at her and she makes a matching face.

“Oh hell no. Cleaning service. Cleaning service all the way. I’m not committed enough to independence to want to scrub toilets myself. But, easier for us to handle on our own between visits.”

“Not dependent.” Logan nods like the concept is becoming clearer to him, and reaches over to lace their fingers together. “Okay. Well, I want somewhere with security. Either a building that has it, or a house with a big privacy fence and a gate. That’s not—Yeah. I don’t want to negotiate on that.”

Veronica uses their clasped hands to tug him closer, sliding forward so that her bent leg presses against his thigh. “Security is fine. Good, even. What else do you want?”

He leans his forehead down to rest against hers, voice tender in that special way she loves. “You living there. With me.”

She’s grinning now, pulse pounding with the adrenaline of what feels like a near miss with disaster coursing through her. “Well, duh. I’m thinking two bedrooms, one for us and one for a small home office. What else for you?”

“Um…” Logan stares at her blankly for a minute, thinking, and then reaches out and pulls her fully onto his lap with a groan. “You know what,” he nuzzles her hair. “I just realized that I don’t have as many requirements as I thought.  It turns out the only other one is a bed big enough that fucking ourselves off of it is a challenge rather than an inevitability.” Lowering his mouth to her neck, he seizes a delicate fold of skin between his teeth and bites down with exquisite lightness. Veronica shivers. “Because, wherever we live, I _do_ plan to do a lot of fucking.”

The pressure of his teeth at her collarbone makes her moan lightly. “We are _definitely_ on the same page there.”

 

______________

All summer, Veronica has been using some of her limited down time to re-familiarize herself with Neptune. Although many aspects of the town are just as they were when she left nine years ago, a lot has changed, too. It was driven home to her just how important this kind of reconnaissance was in her first week back on the job when she lost a tail on the sleazy ex of a very well-paying client by assuming that an alleyway she’d frequently used as a short cut back in the day would still be available. The Jack In The Box that had turned out to occupy the lot these days had renovated, turning the once-convenient short cut into an expanded drive-through lane. Awesome for her late night curly fry cravings, not so awesome for pursuing a tail.

So now, when she has time, she takes the old home nostalgia tour. The area near the former Mars Investigations office is one of the most changed; yuppified almost out of existence. The Aiberto’s Taco at the end of the block has been replaced by an upscale brunch joint serving exclusively Fiji water. The Nguyen’s dry-cleaning business by a Starbucks.

The rest of the town has changed too, but in subtler ways. The east side, once firmly working class, seems to be split now between areas bought up by developers and remade into McMansion sub-developments and areas that have been left to rot, sliding down the socio-economic ladder toward Internet Sweepstakes Cafes and liquor stores with some serious grills obscuring their windows.

On this particular day in early July, Veronica is checking out the area of mid-town that locals refer to as the “mile of cars” with a very specific purpose in mind. Making a left onto Convoy Drive, she drives past some of the more upscale dealerships and auto repair shops in town, including Symbolic Motor Car Company where Curly Moran used to work—still in business despite its tendency to hire ex-felons to do body-work on the million dollar cars of the rich and famous. Towards the end of the block, as the dealerships go from Lexus and BMW to Hyundai and Mazda-Kia, there is a large, well-kept looking auto shop—Neptune Auto Works, according to the red and black sign. Veronica pulls into the parking lot, skirting the open car bays, where a tricked out Audi and a more modest looking suburban are being worked on by crews, and heads into the attached office building.

As she steps into the cool interior, pushing her sunglasses up onto the top of her head, a miniature ball of energy in jean shorts and a rainbow striped tank top comes barreling around the counter, looking back over her shoulder as she giggles and squeals, her tiny sneakers flashing pink lights with every step.

“Papiiiii! Mira, papi, mir—“

Veronica tries to dodge to avoid the little girl, but she is looking backwards for signs of pursuit and smacks into Veronica’s lower legs. She stumbles back a few steps, eyes widening, while Veronica holds her hands out—part instinctive attempt to catch, part I’m-not-a-threat stance.

Tripping over her own feet, the little girl falls down onto her butt with a solid _whumph_. After a moment of startled silence, she lets out a wail. Before Veronica can react, a man in a clean set of work coveralls comes out of the interior office.

“Whoa, whoa...” He stops and takes in the scene—Veronica and the crying toddler—and smiles in a wide, familiar way. Weevil. “Whoa. What have we here?”

Veronica gestures downward, “I’m so sorry, she just came tearing around the corner.”

Weevil looks at the little girl whose sobs have trailed into hiccups. “Nah. She’s not hurt, just shook up.” He scoops her up and sets her on his hip, brushing his thumb under her eye to wipe away the tears and tugging lightly on one wispy pigtail. “You’re okay, _cariño_ , you just met Papi’s friend Veronica. It’s a common reaction.”

The little girl buries her face against the crook of Weevil’s neck. He turns his head to look at Veronica. “You still rolling toddlers for their juicebox money, V?”

Veronica points at herself in faux-shock. “Moi? I think you have us confused again, Weevil.”

“Well, it’s such as easy mistake to make.” He jostles the little girl on his hip. “Baby girl, you want to introduce yourself to Miss Veronica?”

She keeps her face buried in Weevil’s neck, but holds three fingers out in Veronica’s direction. “I this many.”

Weevil laughs. “That’s right baby girl, you are. Valentina.” He offers Veronica the little girl’s name with a smile unlike any she has seen from him before.

At that moment, a stylish, slender woman comes out of the same office that Weevil had, tucking a cell phone into her leather shoulder bag. “Eli, Abi says…oh.” She spots Veronica and gives her a warm smile. “Hello.”

“This is Veronica Mars, from high school. Veronica, this is my wife, Jade.”

Veronica can see that the other woman is as startled as she herself is, but she recovers more quickly. “Oh, Veronica, wow. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“All false.” Veronica insists.

“Really?” Weevil banters with a head tilt. “And here I thought the stories about the services you provided in the bathroom were extremely _true_.”

“Oh _those_ stories. Yeah. I plead the fifth.”        

“No, actually, what Eli told me about was how often you helped him.” Jade smiles fondly at Weevil and he puts an arm around her waist. Veronica takes in the whole picture.

“Wow, Weevil Navarro, family man.”

Valentina finally lifts her head from his neck and pipes in, “My daddy is Eli.”

“I can see that,” Veronica murmurs.

Jade smiles again, then steps away. “We’ve got to go, Eli. Abi is expecting us.”

Weevil sweeps his daughter off of his hip and up into the air, flying her over his head while she laughs in delight. After a moment, he lowers her down to his upturned face, laying a smacking kiss on her before setting her back down on the ground. Steadying Valentina with a gentle hand on her back, he points her at Jade. “Go with Mami now, _cielito_.” He pats her lightly on the butt and she scampers over to take her mother’s lowered hand.

“So nice to meet you, Veronica.”

“You too.”

With a last backwards smile, Jade and Valentina leave the shop. Weevil looks Veronica up and down a little more thoroughly and rocks forward on his toes.

“Well, well, Veronica Mars. I heard you were back in town.”

“Dad told me you had your own place now, I had to come see it. This is really great, Weevil. Congratulations.”

“Yeah. Business is going great.” He hooks his thumbs into his pockets and Veronica can’t help a little smile at his justifiable pride. “Just had our seventh anniversary.”

"That long? Wow. When did you leave Hearst?"

"Oh, I only stuck around that job for maybe a year after you skipped town. Just long enough to save up enough money to build this place here."

He looks around the shop fondly and Veronica’s eyes follow his gaze, taking in the solid construction and the comfortable square footage.

 _He saved up enough for this place on a maintenance salary?_ All of a sudden some suspicions she had regarding the third card duplication machine click into place. She tucks that thought away for later contemplation.

“Hot wife, cute kid, stable business. This really is a new Weevil.”

“Yep. Haven’t been on my bike since ‘Tina was born.”

Veronica raises her eyebrows, somehow more surprised by this news than by any of the rest of the afternoon’s revelations. _I guess some people do manage to get out and stay out. Unlike you, Veronica._ “So you don’t keep up with any of your old contacts?”

His face hardens visibly and there is high school Weevil again. “Working a case, V? Should have known. No, I don’t really keep up with the boys. Arturo is in jail right now though—twenty-five years for three grams of coke on a third strike. You should be able to find him easily enough.”

She holds up her hands in placation. “Whoa there, cowboy; I’m not working a case right now. Just asking.”

“Yeah?” Weevil runs a hand up the back of his head, “Sorry.”

Veronica shakes her head. “I’m not above it.”

“Guess you wouldn’t be you if you were.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to get that.” She pauses, looks briefly at her hands and then back up. “I’m sorry it’s been so long, Weevil. And for not looking you up before I left.”

“Bygones, V. You didn’t owe me nothing. In fact, I probably owed you one at that point.” It’s casually offered, but heartfelt nonetheless.

Veronica smirks. “Would you care to repeat that into my handy dandy tape recorder here, for the record?”

As Weevil opens his mouth to banter back, a BMW S3, teenage redhead at the wheel, pulls up to a service bay and honks. An employee peels off of a group working on an SUV behind the office and heads over to the customer. Weevil eyes the scene wearily.

“I’ve gotta go, V. That chick is a handful—I need to make sure she doesn’t eat Tomas alive.”

“Go.” She makes a shooing motion with her hands.

“We should get together, though. Drinks, maybe. Don’t want to have to wait until the reunion to see you again.”

“Our _high school_ reunion?” Veronica widens her eyes in not-so-fake horror.

“Yeah. This coming January. You didn’t get the invite?”

“I told the postman not to deliver anything if the return address starts with 666.”

“You’re not going to the reunion?”

“You _are_?”

“’Course I am.” Weevil grins, walking backwards away from her. "I hear I've got a lock on that "most changed" trophy. 

________________

 

“Hi honey, I’m home!”

Logan slumps through the door, stopping to kick off his work boots in the entryway. Veronica watches him make an automatic move to put them away in the hall closet, before remembering the new routine. New house. No closet. Shoes in the bin.

After a week or two of looking, they’d settled with a minimum of fuss on a smallish place about twenty minutes south of Neptune—mid-century California modern, somewhat boxy and ugly on the outside—and moved in a few weeks before. The house is a little over half the size of the condo and there are still several stacks of boxes in the living room, since Veronica has been busy and Logan isn’t particularly bothered by them. What it lacks in square footage and curb appeal, though, the house makes up for in large, soaring windows, letting in lots of light and making the rooms feel airy and spacious. Today the living room windows are open, catching a fresh breeze lightly scented with the smell of the ocean which is about five miles away. Dick, when helping carry in boxes, had expressed surprise and mild derision over both the smaller size of the house and its distance from the beach, but those factors mean a rent that Veronica can at least envision being a significant contributor to. There’s a California King bed in the master bedroom. They’re happy.

Logan crosses the room, exhaustion written large on his face despite the cheery tone of his greeting. Veronica gives him an inviting smile from where she sits on the couch, surrounded by bunches of papers in manila file folders. He leans down to kiss her and she shifts a stack of files out of the way so that he can sit down next to her, his head falling back against the top of the couch.                                                                         

Veronica studies him, tapping a closed folder against her leg. “You know, you don’t have to go over there every time he calls. I can help him, or Wallace could—“

“It’s fine. I don’t mind.”

“As much as I appreciate you making the effort with my dad, don’t you think this new renovation duo thing you guys have going on is maybe a bit much? Do you have any idea what his sudden desire to be Mr. Fix It is all about?”

Logan’s lips twist into what might be called a smile. “Oh yeah. He let it slip in one of our frequent gab sessions. Ever since he picked me up from jail we've been BFFs.”

“Well, you’re no Cliff, but I’m sure he makes do.” Veronica shifts to the side and runs a thumb over his cheekbone. “You’ve got dirt…” She holds her thumb up to show him the smudge.

Logan groans and then musters himself into a real smile. Genuine. For her. “I thought you liked it when I was dirty.”

She smiles a little in return but is unwilling to be distracted. “I thought you guys were prepping for the great patio construction project of 2015 today? How did you wind up with what looks like potting soil on you?”

“Going to examine the clay makeup and tell me exactly what county in Bristol the soil came from too, Sherlock?”

“Logan.”

He rolls his head wearily from side to side and absently rotates his shoulder. “We dug out that strip in the side yard. Underneath the living room windows, you know? He wants to plant roses.”

“I just really don’t know where all of this Tim Taylor stuff is coming from.”

Logan just huffs a non-response and closes his eyes.

And she doesn’t. Growing up, her father hadn’t exactly been a handy man-about-the-house. Even when they’d had a house, he was always busy at the station. He would mow the grass on the weekends and he’d fix the occasional plumbing problem, but most of the home maintenance stuff had been up to whatever handyman service Lianne had called.

Ever since he’d moved into the craftsman bungalow a few years ago, though, Keith’s latent DIY genes seem to be surfacing. It had started small, with some furniture related projects he’d tackled with Cliff, but since he’s decided on Logan as his handyman partner, the projects have been coming fast and furious. In the month and a half since she and Logan have been home, the two men have painted the front porch, re-hung all of the doors in the house, dug out the side garden, and now, apparently, plans are underway for the addition of a small patio to the backyard. After their weekly dinner last week, her father had dragged Logan off for consultation on whether or not they needed a post-hole digger to help install the pergola.

It’s not like Logan has any background in any of this either. The child of Hollywood mansions and hotels, handiwork is not exactly in his blood. Every time she tells him to just say no, though, to tell her father he’s busy—which he is—Logan just shakes his head. Tells her he can handle it. 

Logan heaves himself up off of the couch. “I’m going to go take a shower. Miyagi’s for dinner?”                                                              

“Sounds good.” He turns and starts walking down the hallway, stripping his t-shirt off as he goes. “Logan?” He stops. “Thank you.”

Logan gives her a small smile and an eyebrow quirk over his shoulder and heads back to the shower.

Veronica looks at the piles of folders surrounding her. At the still packed boxes.

_You know, I’m pretty grimy. A shower sure does sound good._

________________

 

It is quiet in the house, a comfortable enveloping quiet. Their new place is a small property, but set back from the road a little and far enough away from the neighboring houses to feel sufficiently private. Tonight the soft whirring sounds of the ceiling fans and electrical appliances are Logan’s only company as he gets ready to head out to a bar down by the base.

John Kraft—Cheese—who had been Logan’s first friend in his squadron and something of a mentor to him, will be moving away in a few more days. His sea tour with the squadron finished, he’s gotten a coveted shore duty job as an instructor at the Fighter Weapons School at NAS Fallon in Nevada. The squadron held a big farewell event two weeks ago, just before their stand down ended, but this last drink will be a quieter goodbye for the two men.

Logan putters through the kitchen, scooping up his keys and wallet from the small butcher block island. Veronica is working a late stake out tonight—grumbling about her dad keeping her on cheating spouse cases—and won’t be home for several hours. As he moves through the living room securing the windows, he glances around in satisfaction.

_Our home._

All of the literature that the navy puts out stresses that every homecoming is different, and this one sure as hell has been. Last December he’d left a life full of work and a long distance girlfriend and then six months later come home to a live-in Veronica.

It’s everything he’s ever wanted and it makes him feel like a shitheel sometimes when it feels weird, or too much. In the weeks after returning home from deployment, Logan had alternated between wanting to basically follow Veronica around everywhere—dogging her steps, one hand constantly on her skin for reassurance—and wanting to retreat by himself into some private bolt-hole where the noise of the world couldn’t find him.

He’s familiar with the urge to hide away—that’s how coming home from a deployment or long training exercise has always taken him in the past. A need for quiet downtime that completely confounded Dick’s desire to use the excuse to throw a huge party. Somehow he wasn’t expecting to feel that way this time around, though. Why would he want to be alone when he has Veronica?

After returning from deployment, his squad had gone into a stand-down period where they’d had very light duty requirements for a month. The first few weeks were a blissful vacation of sex-capades, while the second half of the month was taken up with finding and moving into the new house.

A few more days went to putting the house together. Logan had been surprised at how pleased it made him to help Veronica decorate their house in her half-hearted way. She has a tendency to start projects in a flurry of energy and then get distracted by work or studying. The Mars decorating style is eclectic and to anyone else the things that she puts up might seem like a random collection. But he knows. The Sunday when she’d hung the framed prints on the big living room wall above the couch had been one of those days where he’d wanted to have her as close as possible. He’d handed her nails, and critiqued the placement and alignment and generally made such a pest of himself that she’d thrown her hands up, scooped up her bar flashcards and headed out into the miniscule backyard, leaving the job to him. He’s rather absurdly proud of the arrangement he came up with; a framed _Big Lebowski_ poster Veronica had given him for his nineteenth birthday, an aerial shot of Pensacola, prints from the MoMA, an abstract line art schematic of a F/18 cockpit and a beautifully illustrated map of Phillip Marlowe’s Los Angeles.

As he gets ready to leave the house, Logan gently nudges the bottom of the Lebowski poster as he passes, more a gesture of ownership than an aesthetic necessity. Setting the security system from a pad by the door, he jumps into his BMW and heads out into the night. The forty-five minute drive into San Diego is an easy one—a straight shot down the 5—perfect for letting his thoughts drift.

He’s hated it, god he’s hated it, but apparently somewhere along the way he’d gotten used to the idea that his relationship with Veronica was experienced in short gasps—cycles of reunion and separation and heightened emotion—the best and the worst, but precious little in between. That is how they’ve always been. He’s known Veronica for over half of his life, wanted her almost that long, been in a relationship with her for nearly two years, but this is the first time they’re trying to build anything permanent and day-to-day.

Who takes out the trash? If they set up a joint account for household expenses, what counts as a household expense? Does he come along to weekly dinners with her father always or just sometimes? 

He’s doing his best, trying to talk to her, trying to listen. Trying to trust that she’ll stay put through the mundane as well as the difficult and the romantic. It’s getting easier.

He steers the BMW into a parking lot outside of McP’s Irish Pub, a popular bar with the guys in his squad. Inside, Logan weaves his way around clumps of SEALs, aviators, and the college women who are stalking them. At the bar, Cheese spots him and lifts a hand in greeting.

Life in the Navy is one of constant goodbyes—duty stations rotate, people rarely stay in one spot for more than a few years—but some transitions are harder than others. Although Logan and Cheese don’t socialize much, this one is hitting him hard. When he’d arrived at the squadron, the quiet older man had taken Logan under his wing, stepping into a kind of a big brotherly role. Cheese’s intense competence as Weapon Systems Officer is a welcome counterpoint to Logan’s own tendency toward cockiness in the cockpit and the two of them have frequently flown together.

They order beers and settle in for some talk. They cover Cheese’s post-deployment vacation to Baja with his wife, Logan’s new home, Veronica’s work, and then rehash squad gossip and intel about Cheese’s new duty station. Finally, an hour in, the conversation hits a comfortable lull.

Cheese leans his elbows against the bar and runs a hand over his shaved head. “Janae is pregnant,” he says with a soft smile.

“She’s—whoa! Congratulations man!” Logan beams at his friend and then leans awkwardly to the side to give him a one armed hug, clapping him on the back. "Talk about flying straight!"

Cheese shoves him away half-seriously. "Hey now. Too far."

Logan rocks back on his stool. “When’s she due?”

“January.”

“That’s good. That’s good. You’ll be settled in by then.”

“Yeah, home for the birth. The first year.” Cheese shakes his head. “I was kind of freaked out it would happen when I was with the squadron, you know. I don’t want to miss anything.”

“Yeah.” Logan goes quiet for a long moment. “It’s nuts how much things can change in six months, isn’t it?”

Cheese holds up his longneck beer bottle and raises his eyebrows, “To change.”

Logan brings his own bottle up to clink in a toast. “Change.”

 

________________

 

A little over a month after she returns to Mars Investigations, Veronica is on the phone at the secretary’s desk when Keith returns triumphantly to the office after a successful stake out.

She smiles at him, finishing her call. “Okay, Anthony, that sounds great. I’ll be in touch with him sometime tomorrow.”                                                                 

She hangs up and looks at him expectantly. He tosses a file folder on the desk and several 8x10 glossies spill out.

“Money shot, baby!”

“Ooh, Mr. Mars,” she purrs, fanning her face with her hand, “You’re so good it’s almost criminal.”

He screws up his face, holds up a finger, and dons his Colonel Clink voice. “But not quite.”

“Good job, old man.” She pats the file folder with affection. “I’ll give the soon-to-be-ex Mrs. Rodriguez a call in the morning.”

“I can take care of that.”

She smiles a little dryly, “Okay then.”

Keith collapses down onto the reception area couch with a big grin, still riding the high of a successful stake out. The guy he’d caught _in flagrante delicto_ was a real asshole and a serious alcoholic from what he’d seen over the past few days and it was a pleasure to help make sure he didn’t get permanent custody of his kids.

“What was that phone call?”

Veronica turns around, her back to him as she answers casually over her shoulder. “Just a line on some extra cases in San Diego. You don’t mind if I go after them, do you?”

“Not at all. Just don’t commit us to anything I can’t drop when you get a job at a law firm.”

She nods a little, her attention back on what she was working on before the phone call interrupted her.

He should really head back into his office; tackle some of the giant mountain of paperwork waiting for him. Instead he laces his fingers behind his head and watches Veronica.

There is a large table at the back of the reception area where she sometimes likes to lay out paperwork when there is a lot of it. While Keith looks on, she ferries a file folder over from the desk to the table, plucks three pieces of paper from it, and then lays them on top of three different stacks. She sits down in the wooden chair in front of the table and pulls one of the front-most stacks toward her to read. He recognizes Veronica’s characteristic organizational tactic and figures she’s probably looking through police files right now.

 _The Quan case, most likely._ He’d been ready to call it a closed case after they’d rounded up the culprit responsible for the initial vandalism, but Veronica is convinced that there are links to some other petty thefts and B &Es that have been reported at other convenience stores in Neptune.

He watches as she reads, running her fingers over the small silver charm she is wearing on a chain around her neck, a shark—he doesn’t know where she got it. Her hair, down and in waves today, catches the dim overhead light, glinting a dull gold. She shifts and lifts one foot off the floor, bringing it up onto the seat and tucking it under her other leg the way she used to do when she watched cartoons on Sunday mornings in her Smurf pajamas.

Starting tomorrow, she’s taking three days off to go down to San Diego and take the bar exam. He’s already wondering how he will scramble to cover the work she’s taken over in just the two months she’s been back. The office is re-arranging itself around her. He is. 

It’s too much. He can’t let this continue.

________________

 

One major benefit of being back in the vicinity of Neptune is the company. In addition to her father, Veronica falls quickly back into the habit of spending time with Mac and Wallace. The three had drifted apart a bit after she’d left Hearst, both from each other and from her. She had still considered them her closest friends, but by the time she moved to New York sometimes weeks would go by between conversations and years between face-to-face visits.

She’s seen Wallace more often, he’d stayed close to home the whole time—undergrad at Hearst, SDSU for his teaching credential—so trips to her father had always included a few catch up visits. Mac, on the other hand, had done her own wandering—a year abroad in Spain, grad school in Pittsburgh. Now that all three are back in the same general area, though, scheduling lunches and get-togethers is much more natural.

This particular lunch, at the end of July, is ostensibly a celebration of Veronica’s having taken the bar exam the week before but is really just one in a series of what have become fairly regular meet-ups.

Wallace, in full on summer teacher mode, is already sprawled across two chairs at a table on the patio of a small café in Neptune’s developing downtown area when Veronica arrives.

“V!” He kicks aside the chair his feet were resting on and stands to give her a hug. “There’s the big bad test-slaughtering wolf.” He shadow boxes briefly. “Did you show that thing who’s boss?”

“Well, I won’t find out until November, but it sure felt like a KO.” She fakes an uppercut in the direction of his jaw and Wallace falls dramatically back into his seat.

“Damn, November?” He picks up the large Italian club sitting next to his elbow and takes a big bite. “That’s way worse than the CSETs,” he manages around a mouthful of food, spraying slightly on the concluding ‘s.’

Veronica raises her eyebrows in the direction of his sandwich.

“What?” 

“Got started early, eh? You know, I think you might be past the point where ‘growing boy’ is an excuse.”

A dry snort comes from behind Veronica. “Please. Like we haven’t all seen your tapeworm in action, Veronica.”

Veronica stands up to give Mac a quick hug and Wallace mutters “Fanks” around another mouthful of bread and cold cuts.

The girls order and the group chats until their food arrives. Wallace bitches good-naturedly about the summer basketball workouts he’s doing with his team for next year, complaining about the kids’ work ethic and abilities, but clearly thrilled with his recent promotion to head JV coach. Mac mostly listens, her habitual air of quiet assurance marred by the circles of exhaustion under her eyes. Since her visit to New York that spring, her hair has acquired even more platinum and evolved into a cool bouffant faux-hawk style that matches the razor edge of her smile.

In the lull between basketball stories that ensues when Wallace dives headfirst into the jalapeño popper appetizer, Veronica turns to Mac and asks, “Why am I not hearing about James anymore?”

She shrugs and takes an aggressive bite of her Panini. “Turns out he's not the gentleman I would have hoped for.”

Veronica grimaces in sympathy. “Oh, that sucks Mac. Want me to track him down? Slip some shrimp in his air vents?”

“Nah, I’m starting to think that encouraging him to take a job at Kane software is punishment enough.” 

Wallace cuts in, pushing the poppers in their direction. “Work is going that well, huh?”

“Yeah, I think I may have underestimated just how soulless and corporate soulless-and-corporate could be.” She shrugs again. “They do pay me well, though. Oh damn, Wallace, stop giving me the pity eyes. It’s not that bad. Hey look!” She points off to the left. “A baby bunny.”

Both Veronica and Wallace turn, but realize almost immediately that they’ve fallen for a particularly lame diversionary attempt.

Veronica turns back with a scowl and points her fork at Mac. “Not cool to get a girl’s hopes up like that, MacKenzie.”

Mac flips her hand open with a flourish. “I regret nothing.”

Wallace slides in with his usual ability to turn the conversation. “So, V. The joint still jumping at Mars Investigations?”

“Oh yeah, we’re lousy with cheating spouse cases. I’m heading to Reno next week to try to track this one guy; it may take a few days, actually. I’ll text you guys if we need to reschedule lunch.”

Wallace gets a slightly sour look on his face. “Out of town for a few days, I bet fly boy just _loves_ that. He’s not trying to stop you going?”

“Logan has never asked me to stop investigating.” Veronica chews a little, considering, “In fact, I think he’s been pushing for it.”

“He figures he’s going to need those skills the next time he gets accused of a big crime, huh?”

Mac rolls her eyes and props her elbows on the table, “Well which is it Wallace? Is Logan crazily over-protective or is he a mercenary, using V for her investigative skills?”

“If anyone could pull off both…” Wallace mutters, his expression a cross between mulish and embarrassed. 

“Wow. So surly about my hot, accomplished military fighter pilot of a boyfriend. Could that be…jealousy?”

Wallace snorts. “Not everyone wants your man’s bod, V.”

“No, not everyone,” She clasps her hands under her chin and flutters her lashes at him, letting out a girly sigh. “Just you.”

“Ew.” Wallace shoves Veronica playfully. “The only thing I want from your boyfriend is for him to treat you right…and maybe an introduction to a sexy single fly girl.”

“First: he does and pretty much always has. Second: there aren’t any girls in his squadron right now, but I’ll be sure to put in a request that he let you know next time he comes across a foxy aviator about...yea high.” She holds her hand insultingly close to the ground and Wallace looks affronted.

Leaning across the table, he snags a French fry off of Mac’s plate and dips it in Veronica’s ranch dressing. “Well, soon enough you’ll be off to work at some big firm and it won’t matter anyway.”

Veronica holds her fork up like a weapon, tines out threateningly in his direction, and takes a swig of water. “So, what classes are you teaching next year, buddy? Biology again?”

Wallace narrows his eyes at her. “V, you _are_ going to apply to law firms now that you’ve taken the bar, right?”

“Mmm.” She says, carefully chewing and swallowing a mouthful of salad.

“Man, I should have known.” He shakes his head. “Just like old times, except I’m the only one still stuck in high school. Somewhere my life seems to have gone horribly wrong. At least Mac has a grown up job.”

“On that note.” Veronica puts her fork down. “Mac, do you think you might be interested in some consulting work? Part time, at least for now.”

Mac’s eyes widen in excitement.

Wallace drops his head back in exasperation. “Naw.”

 

________________

By early August, Logan’s squadron is back up and running at full steam and he’s once again busy pretty much every day. In some ways it’s easier for Veronica to go off to work when she knows Logan isn’t sitting back at home staring at the three boxes that have yet to be unpacked, but it does make it harder to soak in the quality together time she’d become awfully used to getting in the first months she was home.

They still manage, though. One Friday he finishes his line inspections early and shows up at Mars Investigations on a surprise visit. Veronica decides to take a long lunch and the two of them take the scenic way around Neptune, driving along the PCH in the general direction of Cho’s pizza, but without any sort of special urgency about their destination.

It’s a perfectly sunny SoCal day; the top is down and the wind is blowing through Logan’s shiny new BMW convertible and really, this whole boyfriend-with-inherited-wealth thing isn’t _all_ bad, Veronica thinks to herself with a private smile.

Logan glances over at her and smiles in return, pulling his sunglasses down a little and giving her a raised-eyebrow smirk before returning his attention to the road.  His hand taps out the rhythm of the song playing on the radio in sharp staccato bursts.

Veronica lets out a snort of contented laughter and leans her head back against the plush leather headrest, gathering her hair into a loose ponytail with her hand to stop it from whipping in her face.

Just as they pull off the freeway and into the parking lot at Cho’s, the song ends and the voice of the DJ comes on, uncharacteristically somber.

“Some sad news out of Los Angeles this morning. Pop singer Bonnie DeVille was found dead in her bathroom a few hours ago, the cause of death an apparent drug overdose. We are anticipating an LAPD press conference later this hour with more information, but for right now we can tell you that, unfortunately, Bonnie DeVille, singer of the recently released album _Confessional_ , has passed away. She was twenty-seven years old.”

Veronica’s eyes meet Logan’s as she lets out an involuntary shocked, “Oh.”

“Carrie,” he says, grimly, shaking his head, before shutting off the radio with an angry click. “You go on in and order the food, Veronica. I need to call Dick.”

Veronica nods and briefly rests a hand on his shoulder before exiting the car.

Later that evening, they are home relaxing in front of the television with a couple of Blue Moons when the news comes on.

Typical stock footage of Carrie—Bonnie—overlays the news anchor discussing her death.

It’s the same information over again on a loop. “Found dead that morning in her LA home…a bright young voice on the music scene…a troubled artist…accidental overdose…dead at twenty-seven.”

A brief interview with “best friend, socialite Gia Goodman, speaking from St. Tropez, where she is celebrating her recent engagement to the son of Congressman Haldeman.”

The shot switches to an establishing pan of a tropical looking hotel before focusing in on a distressed Gia Goodman—who looks barely older than she did in high school and seems to have retained most of her nervous mannerisms. Her voice is shaking.

“Carrie was my _best_ friend. She was so happy just last weekend when Luke and I announced our engagement. She was going to fly out here tomorrow to meet us. I wanted her to be my maid of honor and now… I just can’t believe she’s gone.”

Tears roll down Gia’s cheeks— _genuine ones_ , Veronica’s cynical brain thinks—and the shot cuts away back to the studio where the anchor maintains her sad face for about three seconds before throwing the show into commercial break with a teaser about some elementary school kids teaching a duck to water ski.

Logan reaches for the remote and shuts the TV off. He settles himself wearily back into the couch cushions.  

Veronica pulls her feet up under her. “I’m sorry about Carrie. I didn’t know her very well in high school but she seemed…” 

“Yeah. Dick was pretty shaken up.”

“I’m sure.” She’s trying to watch Logan closely without seeming to. Drugs, potential suicide; both touchy subjects for him. “Did you ever hang out with her?”

“A few times. She hung out with Gia and them a lot, not really my crowd, but Dick liked to party with them.” Logan directs a wry smile at the ceiling fan. “I think the last time I saw Carrie was the weekend before my crash, actually. Dick dragged me out to one of her after parties. I had early flight hours, but she made me stay. Slinked up to me, asked if I thought an acoustic cover of “Rehab” would be too on the nose for her next concert and then told me, um, that I needed to learn to live a little more.” He chuckles darkly.           

“You liked her.”

“Yeah, she was—yeah. I did. I think she’d been spiraling pretty hard, though. Even Dick stopped hanging out with her as much the last few months, and you know it’s bad when you’re partying too recklessly for _Dick_.”

“Do you want to go to the funeral?”

“God no.” He pulls a face. “Too many of those. But if Dick…” Logan shakes his head. “I’m going to give him another call. See if he wants to go surfing in the morning, okay?”

“Of course.”

________________

 

“All right Logan, shift that slat over about two inches.”

“Yes sir.” Logan swipes his forearm across his forehead and complies.

Keith grunts. “A little more…little mo—okay. That’s good, right there.”

Logan nods and Keith braces the boards with both hands. Wordlessly, he shifts his body out of the way so that Logan, who has snagged the cordless drill off of the ground, can bore the pilot holes and attach the two boards with a set of screws.

They move around each other comfortably, their actions accomplished with the wordless choreography born of repetition. After three hours of solid work, the pergola they are putting together in Keith’s backyard is almost complete.

As Logan sets the last of the screws, Keith releases his grip on the boards and steps back to survey the structure. “Looking good. Looking good, I think.”

Logan dusts his hands off and joins him. “Yeah. Not too bad. The back post is still a little off, but I think I’d rather endure the inevitable ‘leans to the left’ jokes from Veronica than re-set it for the fourth time.”

Keith smiles wryly. “Jokes from Veronica. What a new experience that will be.”

They both snort in unison.

“The only thing up for debate is: where will she go first?”

“The pergoleaner,” Keith says decisively.

Logan cocks his head to the side. “I’m thinking an Italian accent and ‘the leaning tower of Mars-a.’”

“We should start a pool.”

Their mutual chuckles die off and they stand there, staring at the structure until the silence grows heavy and awkward.

“You want something to drink, Logan? Thirsty work.”

“No, um. I need to head out. D’you mind if I use the bathroom first, though?”                                           

“Of course not.” Keith waves a hand in invitation and Logan turns and heads into the house.

Putting his hands on his hips, Keith wanders over to the newly constructed structure. It still needs to be sanded and given a coat of paint, but otherwise it looks like he’d imagined. He leans against the front post and gives it an experimental bump with his shoulder. No wobbling. It’s solid.

He gazes up at the open latticework above, mentally planning the climbing vine he’ll train to grow across the top. _Honeysuckle, maybe…or bougainvillea._

Whatever it is, it’ll be hearty; something that will come back over and over, season after season. He knows Veronica doesn’t get it, but he’s finding more and more at this stage of his life that he craves visible outcomes. He’s spent most of his adulthood on impermanence. Living in rooms he didn’t own, relationships that came and went, a career that he built and then lost and then gained again and then lost again. Even Mars Investigations has moved, changing, and now with Veronica there…He doesn’t feel any urge to slow down at work or retire, he just wants to build things. Plant things. Grow roots.

Maybe with Logan, too.

He'd started asking the younger man over in hopes of finding a way to reach some accord. It doesn’t make him feel good to quietly circle his daughter’s boyfriend like an aging, wary guard dog every time they meet. It was easy enough to avoid, at least initially, with Veronica across the country, but their conversation in the car after he’d picked Logan up from jail had exposed that had exposed that tactic for what it was—cowardice.

Thus, the renovation projects. 

He’s since been forced to acknowledge that the kid—man—is steadier than he’d wanted to admit. All he’d ever seen in a young Logan was impermanence. A flighty and exciting Lianne-analog who would lure Veronica in and, whether intentionally or not, hurt her over and over again before ultimately leaving her alone and rootless. It was a mental prediction that had seemed grimly accurate by the end of Veronica’s freshman year.

Keith's marriage had taught him that you can’t change people just by loving them. Whatever their inherent flaws are, wishing and hoping and sticking around in expectation of some great transformation was an exercise in futility. You needed to take people as you found them, or not at all.

The kids have been back together two years now almost exactly, though, and those things he’d thought inherent flaws of Logan’s—chronic self-destructive instincts that dragged others down with him, a tendency toward violence, emotional instability, an inner darkness, burgeoning alcoholism—have yet to reappear in any sort of significant way.

_Maybe you can’t change someone, but maybe, just maybe, they can change themselves._

Logan comes back out of the house and wordlessly hands Keith a bottle of cold iced tea from the refrigerator. He gives the post of the pergola a self-conscious pat.

“Well, I should get going. Uh, I promised Veronica I’d pick up some groceries on the way home.” Keith watches the young man run a hand awkwardly across the back of his neck.

“Thanks for your help today, Logan.”

They do their customary shake.

“Yeah. No problem, Mr. Mars.”

 

______________

 

Early Sunday morning, late in August. Sunlight streams in through the windows of their room, heating the bed, and making dust motes dance golden in the air. Veronica stretches luxuriously and grins up at the slowly turning ceiling fan.

She runs a hand down her body, enjoying the lingering soreness from what was a particularly athletic bout of sex last night. It was more than athletic, it’s was amazing…superb…

_I need new adjectives._

Her grin broadens and she turns to look at the lump of naked man sleeping on his stomach in the bed next to her.

 _Logan-eriffic_?

She lets out a snort as the object of her superlatives continues to do the not-quite-a-snore heavy breathing thing into his pillow.

Early morning whimsy has her in its grip and there is no way she is going back to sleep now. Veronica smiles, staring at the side of Logan’s head, right in her line of sight. She extends her index finger, circling it through the air in an ever-narrowing spiral, like an arrow homing toward a target, until it lands gently against the top of his ear. Pressing lightly, she pins the protruding appendage flat against the side of his head. _Fighting the forces of nature like a god of old._ She moves her finger away and watches his ear spring outwards, back into shape. With a small tender smile, she presses it flat again, watches it spring free again.

Logan emits a zombie-like groan. “Wh’Ron’ca?” He mumble-moans, face muffled in his pillow. “Sleep.”

She can’t help the small giggle that escapes her. “Sorry.”

He burrows his face back into the down and she remains quiet for several minutes, but his breathing fails to resume the even rhythm of sleep.

“Logan?”

He rolls his face to the side so that one brown eye stares back at her.

“Good morning.”

With a low rueful chuckle, he slings an arm around her waist and drags her partially under him. “G’morning, mmm…” He buries his face in the crook of her neck and gives her shoulder a sloppy morning kiss. “I thought you were tired.”

“I was.” Veronica kisses softly up his jawline. “Last night. Then I slept. Now here I am, wide awake…” She wiggles out from under him and bounces to a sitting position on the bed, “and ready to play!”

Logan laughs, rich and free, flipping over to lie back against the pillows. “Okay, who are you and what have you done with my girlfriend?”

“What exactly are you implying, Lieutenant?”

“I’m implying,” he grabs her wrist and pulls her down on top of him, “that I need to check for zippers.” He runs his fingers up and down the knobs of her spine. “Or electrodes, maybe,” his fingers cup the base of her skull, “to find out what could possibly have put Veronica Mars in such a chipper mood this early in the morning.”

The fingers on her head soothe into a slow massage and Veronica sinks into him lazily. She can feel his morning wood brushing her through the sheets and she’s definitely got plans to make sure _that_ doesn’t go to waste, but right now it feels pretty nice just to lay here, languid in the sun.

Logan’s tone is idle, too, when he tucks some of her hair behind her ear and asks, “do you know we’ve been back together for two years now?”

Veronica does some quick calculations in her head. _August_. “You’re right.” She reaches over and twines their fingers together and the room lapses into a comfortable silence. Her brain trips along from thought to thought…how long two years would have seemed to her high school self the first time they dated…how quickly it has gone …a brief thought about whether she should suggest _celebrating_ this anniversary, followed by the comfortable conviction that that’s not really the kind of couple they are…and besides, they’re so busy…a slight worry about the rapidly increasing pace of Logan’s work schedule, which she pushes away quickly…thoughts about the Navy…

While she lets her mind drift, Logan has lifted their joined hands upward off the bed, stretching them slowly toward the ceiling; her arm a dead weight along for the ride. He extends them upward as far as he can and Veronica lazily admires the differences between his forearm—darkly tan, muscular, and sprinkled lightly with hair that sparks golden in the morning light—and her own, toned but pale. Logan presses a kiss to her bicep and then lets the weight of his own arm take both limbs back down to the sheets in a muffled _whumph_.

When he starts to nibble at her shoulder, Veronica asks, idly, “If I hadn’t left Neptune, do you think you would still have joined the Navy?”

Logan’s mouth freezes on her skin and he releases her fingers slowly. There is a laden pause before he rolls out from under her with a heavy flop. “Veronica…” He can’t seem to come up with the words and silence squats heavy in their bedroom.

She hadn’t even really known the question was going to come out of her mouth until it did, but it makes sense. She’s been thinking about it. Back here, living in Neptune, investigating with her dad, dating Logan, hanging out with Mac and Wallace. It’s like the intervening years have just been some weird blip—some nine year long mistaken cancellation. She can’t help wondering if she would have been better off having never left at all.

“No.”

It’s been so long, and Veronica has been so lost in her own head, that it takes her a moment to realize that Logan is answering her question, not her thoughts.

“No, I probably wouldn’t have joined the Navy. I wouldn’t have wanted to leave you for that long. Even if we weren’t together.”

Logan’s voice is low and scratchy and she rolls over and looks into his eyes. _Shit._ He looks sad and that is absolutely not what she was going for this morning. “I’m sorry.” She lifts her hand up to cup his cheek and he presses a kiss into her palm. 

“Don’t be sorry.” He turns to lay flat on his back again, crossing his arms behind his head and staring up at the ceiling, leaving Veronica staring at his profile. “I mean, it was probably for the best.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know,” she watches the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows, “without the military I’d just have stayed this fuck up. You would have hated that…we would have just kept hurting each other…”

Veronica opens her mouth and then closes it. This is so far from anything that was in her head that she can’t come up with anything beyond, “What the fuck?”

He turns his head slightly and then looks surprised at her frustrated glare. “What?”

“Logan, you know that the military wasn’t some…magical thing, right? You didn’t just, I don’t know, randomly manage to stumble into the one profession that could have straightened you out.”

His raised eyebrows clearly say that he’s not buying what she’s selling.

She props herself up and leans over him, hair falling down around their faces in a curtain. “It was _you,_ Logan. _You_ figured out that you needed a change. _You_ worked hard to make it happen. It was in you and even if I _had_ been there, or if there was no Navy, or…or…whatever, you would still have figured it out eventually. I know you would have. I know _you_." 

“Veronica…” Logan moistens his lips with his tongue, clearly caught up in the intensity of his own emotions.

She jabs him sharply in the side with an elbow. “It’s Sunday morning and I'm horny. Stop being so _broody_ , Mr. McBroods-a-lot.”

Logan’s eyebrows wing upwards and he lets out something that is part laugh, part cough and part choke. She pinches his chest and he squirms away. “Hey…” He is laughing fully and in earnest now, having a hard time getting the words out as it overtakes him, “I’ll have you know…” more laughter, “it’s _Lieutenant_ McBroods-a-lot.”

He grasps her forearms and tugs and Veronica comes willingly astride his body, still warm and naked and smelling of sleep.

As she straddles him, his hips move instinctively into position, slotting between her legs without entering. The sudden pressure in exactly the right places, combined with the way Logan’s body is still shaking with laughter, makes Veronica let out an involuntary moan. She wasn't lying about being horny. He chuckles again and then slides his length along her, wet and hot and friction everywhere she needs it, making her body buzz. It’s delicious and she rocks against him again and again, enjoying the sensation and the laughter in his eyes, and the sunlight streaming across the bed, dappling buttery patterns on their skin.

Long, slow, hot minutes go by as Logan arcs his hips in a sinuous wave, keeping up the pressure. For a while she’s content to let him set the pace from below, lazy and languid as the sun and exertion bake out a sheen of sweat on both of their bodies. He’s teasing her, hitting against her clit, occasionally catching on her, almost entering, then sliding away again and _oh god_ it feels so good but it could feel so much better if he would just…

“Logan,” she whines.

“Not yet,” he breathes, increasing the pressure as they start to rock frantically, but stopping her from taking him into her. He grips her hips and rolls them over so that she is under him, pinned and protected. Veronica eagerly spreads her legs wider, figuring they’re finally getting to the main event, but Logan appears to be in no hurry, his face joyously devilish as he hovers over her, still rocking. He chuckles breathlessly, his mouth hanging slightly open, eyes going intent as the sensation between them builds.

The angle is amazing and Veronica is so wet that she can feel it dripping down onto the sheets and the sounds they make sliding against each other are _god so fucking hot_ , but she just wants him inside of her and he won’t get there.

“ _God_ , you are such a dick.”

Logan raises an eyebrow and shifts a little so that he is teasing her with the head of, well, of his dick. 

Unfortunately for him, the movement is a tactical mistake, because the fraction of an inch he’s shifted gives Veronica the room to maneuver. Mouth open in a silent “ah!” she finally gets him where she wants him, wiggling around until he slides in an inch and then, with a grunted “fuck, Veronica,” all the way home.

When he’s in to the hilt, he stills and she breathes in the sensation. She clenches her inner muscles around him in a long, slow undulation and he groans, pressing into her more firmly and trapping her against the bed. 

Maybe it’s a little sick of her, but sometimes Veronica likes to feel trapped by him, overwhelmed. At his mercy. She can feel the edges of an orgasm starting to build just from the thought. Right now, though, she just wants to feel him moving deep, a hard thrusting that will both ease and feed the ache in her.

Veronica jiggles her hips from side to side, trying to get him moving. Unsuccessful. Logan merely smirks down at her. His legs are tangled around hers in a way that makes it nearly impossible for her to thrust up onto him.

 _Got you_ , his eyes say.

She huffs out a breath, tightening around him again. “ _God_ , I don’t think you could be any more annoying if you tried.”

Before the words are even fully out of her mouth she knows she’s made a mistake. Logan’s expression lights with glee.

“Oh _really_? Hmm…a challenge.”

Veronica scowls up at him. “Hey there, bucko.” She wiggles again, taking small delight in the way his eyes glaze over as they follow her jiggling breasts. “I’m getting a little bored down here. Maybe I should think about getting dressed. Starting my day.”

Logan lets out a low growl, leaning forward to nip at her collarbone. “Nope.”

Bracing himself on his forearms, he leans forward so that his mouth is right near her ear, hot breath caressing her. Veronica can feel her body unconsciously flexing against him. Straining upwards.

Finally, slowly, his hips start to drive into hers. A moan catches in her throat and her brain is just starting to blank out in the best of ways when…

 _“What’s new pussycat? Whoa-ah, whoa-ah, whoa-oh,”_ Logan croons the song low into her ear, voice full of laughter as he pulses into her.

“Nooo!” Veronica flails, torn between horror and helpless laughter and intense pleasure. “Stop. God. Stop.”

“Stop?” He stills his hips and then continues the song. _“Pussycat, pussycat, you’re de-lic-ious, and if my wishes…”_ And _damn_ , Logan cannot sing. Even at the best of times he has a bit of a tin ear, but now his voice is choked up with laughter and he appears to be stuck somewhere between two keys.

 _“Pussycat, pussycat, I love you, yes, I doooo…”_ He hums a little, tunelessly, and skips over several lines he clearly doesn’t know to get back to the chorus. “ _Whoa-ah, whoa-ah, whoa-oh,”_ With each “whoa’ he swivels his hips against her in a maddening motion.

Veronica is smacking her hands against his shoulders, convulsing with almost uncontrollable laughter. “Stop. Please. I can’t—I’ll talk—no more.”

He swivels again and she can feel her eyes roll back in her head. One of her legs has come free enough that she hitches it up along his hip, deepening the hard, hot pressure of him inside of her. He grabs the ankle of that leg and runs his thumb softly over her Achilles tendon before stretching it up slowly to hook over his shoulder.

Ah god, the pressure is so— _ah_. “Almost,” she gasps.

“Want me?” he murmurs.

She arches her back, trying to get more, deeper. “Oh fuck yes, you asshole.”

“Even when I sing?”

“Even—ah!” She clenches her muscles around him, hovering right on the edge and she can feel his dick twitching inside of her. “Especially then.”

“Say it.”

“I take it back,” she gasps. “You’re the most annoying man who ever annoyed.”

Eyes alight, Logan grasps her ankle, stretches it up higher and finally starts to thrust hard; once, twice, and she’s over the edge, coming almost immediately in great jerking spasms that empty her out. Fill her up. He continues to ride her gently through it, murmuring her name over and over.

When Veronica finally subsides and focuses in on his face, he is positively beaming, eager and wide open in the boyish way she loves so much and sees so rarely. She smiles up at him and he shifts a little inside of her.

“Okay?”

She nods and leans upwards to mouth at the sweaty hollow where his throat dips down into his collarbone, licking the taste of him into her. Logan peppers kisses all over her skin, every inch he can reach. Small, smacking, teasing kisses interspersed with deep hard suction on the base of her neck, her nipples, working her back up again faster than she would have thought possible. It doesn’t take long at all before she’s buzzing again, aching and ready for him to move.

“Logan.”

He releases her nipple, darting his tongue out to lightly tease the underside of her breast. “Pussycat?”

“I love you.”

He ducks his head, mouth still against her breast and says softly, “Love you, Veronica.”

Veronica runs a hand down her own body then, and presses a finger firmly against her clit. “I love you, _but_ if you don’t finish us off soon I may never again be capable of leaving this bed.”

“That sounds less like a threat and more like an inducement.”

She rolls her hips. “Inducement. Mmm, that’s right, give it to me good with that SAT vocabulary.”

“In that case,” he picks up her rhythm and starts to move with her, “You look perfectly pulchritudinous.” Thrust. “All flushed and,” thrust, “effulgent and,” thrust, “bounteous.”

Pulling herself up, Veronica bites his shoulder. “You have been using that word wrong since the ninth grade.” She runs her hands down his lower back, skimming over scar tissue.

“Oh really? How pos—“

She digs her nails into his ass and his body stutters before jerking out a faster rhythm.

“…positively pedan—“

She trails a hand down low, dipping to cup his balls where they ride high and tight against his body. Logan lets out an animalistic growl, but tries one last time, “ped—“ before she gently strokes the taut stretch of skin between them and he completely loses the thread.

Words give way to breathless moans and a hard, pounding crescendo that blanks out everything. This time they’re both there together, her favorite way to exit the world, and she can barely hear her own cries over the hammering of his heart.

She blinks herself back to awareness as he is shifting them to the side of the bed, away from the wet spot.

“Still horny?”

"Mm...I think that's been taken care of, thank you very much." 

“Glad to be of service.”

She settles next to him. High on happy endorphins, her hands wander over his body, brushing across his chest, shaping their way down his arms, caressing his hips.

Veronica is tracing a hand down his thigh when she lets out a sudden and uncontrolled explosive snort before bursting into giggles. _“Wh-ho-ah—”_ She’s trying to sing the song back at Logan but can’t manage to get more than a syllable or two out around her laughter.

Looking at her, Logan can’t seem to control his face either, smiling a broad silly smile, before succumbing. She rolls over into him, pushing her forehead against his chest and he wraps his arms around her, squeezing tightly as they both laugh hysterically. Every time one of them starts to calm down, the other will burst out with a “whoa” and start them laughing again.

Finally worn out, stomach muscles aching, Logan rolls onto his back, taking Veronica with him, draped partially across him, exhausted and happy. He traces a palm lightly down her back.

Pressing his lips against her shoulder, he murmurs into her skin. “You really think I would have figured it out?”

She rolls her eyes. “Logan, I don’t have to _think_ that. You _did_ figure it out, you moron.”

“But, even without…”

She snuggles deeper into his side, one hand splayed across his heart, the other drifting downward to rest very gently against his genitals. “I know you.”

He snorts, pulls her in even closer. “You _own_ me.”

“And there ain’t no returns department.”

 

________________

 

Veronica hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d told Mac and Wallace that Mars Investigations was busy. In the last month, both she and her father have been out nearly every night on stake-outs. She took an expensed two day trip to Reno. He’s gone on three in-state skip traces. Between their regular bread-and-butter jobs and the extra cases she’s been picking up out of San Diego, they have barely spent any time together. Today is the first day all week that they’ve both found themselves in the office for any length of time.

Despite their lack of proximity (or, partially, because of it) Veronica knows that her father has been in an odd mood for weeks now. She knows the turning point, too; she took the bar exam almost a month ago and ever since then he’s been brusque. Avoiding her. Oh, he hides it well. Keith Mars is nothing if not good at hiding his feelings and projecting bonhomie, but underneath she knows something is wrong. He keeps taking files off of her pile, declaring that he’ll take care of them and he’s even more reluctant than usual to share the details of his own cases with her. Of course, she’s been no better, keeping some secrets of her own.

As if thinking of him conjures him up, Keith appears in the doorway of his office. “Veronica, did you take the Browning file off my desk?”

“Yeah, I was running invoices and I wanted to make sure that one got in there.”

“I would have taken care of it.”

“Of course you would have.” She smiles brightly. “But I did and now you don’t have to. Next week _you’re_ on invoices.”

He gives a stiff nod, knocks three times on the doorframe he’s leaning on and changes the subject. Classic deflection strategy.

“So Logan can’t make it for dinner tonight?”

“No, he’s got some flight time this evening.” She smirks. “He said to let you know that the two of you can put the finishing touches on the leaning tower of Mars-a next weekend.”

“Did he phrase it that way?”

“Nope. My own special addition.”

Her father mutters something under his breath that sounds like it includes the word “ringer,” but before she can question him, he’s back on the topic of Logan.

“His schedule is getting busy again, huh?”

“Yeah.” Veronica would really rather not be talking about this and she’s sure her tone shows it.

“It’s only been, what? Three months since he got home?” Keith moves into the inner office, closer to her, and perches on the arm of the couch, settling in for a chat. He’s got his concerned-father face on.

 _Oh sure, this he’ll talk about_.

Veronica sighs. “Yeah. This level of busy is unusual at this point, I guess. Logan said generally there’s a slower ramp up in their training or whatnot after the stand-down period.”  She fingers a strand of her hair, twisting it around her fingertip until it turns purple and then releasing.

“Does that mean they’re going somewhere?”

“Not right away. He thinks maybe that because of everything that’s going on,” she waves a hand to indicate the complexities of global politics, “the brass wants them to hit ready carrier status a few months before they ordinarily would.”

“Ready carrier?”

“That’s when they’ve finished Quals and COMPUTEX and could technically chop to the fleet at any time.”

Keith looks at her strangely. “Come again? This time, let’s try English.”

She laughs, taps her pen on the desk blotter. “Sorry. The navy jargon is like verbal kudzu. I meant they’ll have done enough training that they’re considered basically ready, even though there would usually be several more months of advanced stuff.”

“So does that mean Logan could be deployed again soon?”

Veronica’s voice toughens, she can practically feel her shields coming down. “I don’t know.”

“Well, I hope not.”

“Yeah.” She straightens her papers. “Sure would put a cramp in your renovation schedule. When we were picking up patio furniture at Home Depot the other day I caught him pricing electric sanders on the sly. You’re ruining him.”

“It’s okay to not be happy about this, Veronica.” Keith tilts his head to the side knowingly.

“We don’t know anything for sure.” _And that’s my last word on the subject._ “Look, I was going through the files on those convenience store vandalism and burglary cases again. I think I may have fou—“

He makes a fist, taps it against his thigh. “Veronica, that case is done.”

She frowns. “But I—“

“No.” He gets up off the arm of the couch. “Mrs. Quan hired us to find the vandals and we did. She paid us; it’s done. This is a small business, we can’t afford to spend our time looking into things we’re not getting paid for.”

“Dad, each of the stores had refused an offer to sell to a developer at some point in the month before they were hit. The Sheriff’s department—”

“No, Veronica.” It’s loud, his reasonable father-knows-best voice gone with the wind. “You’re—we’re not looking into this.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Fine.” _I’m not dropping this_. Picking up the papers scattered across her desk, she starts to stack them purposefully. “I’m going to head out a little early today. I need to go home and pick up that batch of cookies I promised you, plus I want to catch Logan before he leaves. Is 6:30 okay for dinner?”

She grabs her bag off the back of her chair and slings it over her shoulder, turning around to find Keith still standing there staring at her.

“Veronica, you took the bar exam a month ago. Are you applying to law firms?”

She stills, one hand resting on the desk. “No, Dad, I’m not.”

He opens his mouth, closes it. Puts his hands on his hips. “I thought you were only going to be working here until you landed a job at a law firm in San Diego or LA.”

“I never said that.”

“No, I guess you didn’t.”

Veronica shakes her head, starts to skirt around him, but she’s stopped by his voice. He sounds...old. It unnerves her. 

“Why take the bar exam, then? Why bother if you’re just going to throw yourself—into this.” She hears the words he didn’t say; _throw yourself away on this_.

Slowly, she turns back around. “I took the bar exam to keep my options open. I figured…it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Having a law degree makes me valuable as an investigator. You know those cases I picked up in San Diego this month?”

Keith nods.

“Anthony, my old boss from the clinic in New York, pointed a former colleague of his in my direction because of my degree. This guy, he runs a legal aid clinic in San Diego. Sometimes their caseload exceeds what their regular investigator can handle. They contract out investigative work and they like having someone with a legal background. I did well on those cases. This could be a new avenue for us—legal clinic work—and if I pass the bar I can offer some basic legal services, too. Expand the operation a little. Take some of the pressure off of you so you don’t have to do as many long distance skip traces.”

If she were listening from outside of herself, Veronica thinks, it would sound logical. She laid it out in the same way she would have presented a solution to Anthony or any other boss. Professionally. With barely a hint at the emotional turmoil she’s gone through in the last year to get to this point.

Keith has had less time to process— _okay, no time—_ and he is still staring at her, mouth slightly agape.

“Wow, Veronica. I had…no idea.” He shakes his head. “Why didn’t you talk to me about any of this?”

Her lips quirk wryly. “It’s not really the Mars way.”

“Yeah, sorry about that, sweetie.”

“Don’t be sorry. This poker face,” she draws a circle around her face in the air with a finger, “has saved me more trouble than it has caused. Your genetic legacy is overall positive.”

“I sure hope so.” He’s almost whispering, still clearly a little stunned.

She leans forward to kiss him on the top of his head. “I really need to go, or I’ll miss Logan. 6:30 at your place for dinner, okay? And I’ll fill you in on the San Diego cases.”

“Sure.”

Veronica heads toward the door, pausing at the threshold at the last minute. “I really missed this, Dad.” She waves a hand around the office. “I missed working with you.”

“I missed you, too, kiddo.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes was this chapter a giant freaking mess before **marshmallowtasha** got her hands on it! I owe her so many thanks for patiently helping me untangle this one and for being unfailingly encouraging!


	11. December 2015 - January 2016

The shots from the security camera of the Stop N’ Go are baffling. Six minutes of nothing—a calm, empty, orderly store in the dead of night—then a small mechanical blip, and then, appearing suddenly on screen, a vandalized shop: windows smashed, canned goods strewn about the floor, spray paint everywhere.

The Sheriff Department’s official word is that the security tape warped; it was too old, used too many times. _Whoops, so sorry small business owner, nothing we can do_. Just one in a string of mysterious vandalisms.

This particular incident had happened in April, but it was months before it even came to Veronica’s notice. Since the Quan case, she’d been digging into several convenience store robberies and vandalisms, seeking confirmation of the niggling voice in her head that told her there _was_ a pattern. There was. But where did the Stop N’ Go fit in?

She didn’t feel right working the case during Mars Investigations’ regular hours—her father had made his feelings about her pursuing this particular trail clear at the end of the summer. But she’d printed out large 8½  x 11 glossies, anyway, and had developed a tendency of pulling them out to puzzle over in her spare minutes at home.

They’d become her hobby, this set of stills. Her late-night can’t-sleep puzzle. A frustrating mystery that it might not actually be possible to solve.

Nothing is impossible to solve; she won’t accept that.

This evening, though, Veronica’s attention is only partially on the images. She’s got them spread out across the kitchen bar more from force of habit than from any real desire to detect. Her focus keeps drifting away from the pictures to her phone, and then to the front door. To her phone again. To the heart beating a dull, steady thump in her chest. 

Shaking her head, and forcing her attention away from the door, Veronica picks up the last frame taken before the camera blipped. Half of the image is a gray blur, but in the upper corner…She turns the picture sideways, squinting. It’s looks like the edge of a sleeve, maybe, and something in the color, the shape, looks familiar…

The doorknob rattles and her head snaps up; the photo, forgotten, hangs suspended between her suddenly nerveless fingers.

With a familiar click and soft squeak, the door swings open and Logan walks into their home. Veronica forces herself to lay the Stop N’ Go picture down calmly in a stack with the others, her heart suddenly beating loudly in her ears.

“So?” she asks, before he can say anything.

Logan meets her eyes and nods shortly.

Her gaze flicks down and she drums her fingers on the surface of one of the photos, a small series of staccato beats. “When?”

He swallows and walks over to her, stopping about three feet away, his hands loosely curled at his sides. “Just about two months. January 25th.”

She nods. “That’s…that’s about when you thought.”

“Right.”

“And it’s for six months?”

“Yeah, that’s what they’re telling us.”

“Well, okay. We’ll just—okay.” Her body jolts into motion and Veronica sweeps the photos into a stack in one controlled movement and pushes them to the edge of the counter. “I’m going to order dinner—that Thai place you like, if it sounds good.” She turns around, fishing through the kitchen junk drawer where they keep the take-out menus, her mind oddly blank. “Can you pick the food up? I know it’s my turn to get dinner, but I’ve got a lot to do for a case, might need to go back out tonight.”

Logan walks up behind her and touches the back of her neck tentatively.

“Don’t, Logan,” she says very quietly, still focused on her search. “Not right now.”

He doesn’t say anything, but behind her, she can feel the shift in the air as he backs away and heads toward the bathroom.

 

______________

 

It’s the little things she starts to find annoying.

He’s constantly tidying up by putting away things that she’d left out on purpose.

He’s working too much, and when he’s home his phone beeps constantly with incoming emails. The sound starts to feel like a drill in her brain.

She keeps finding the damn peanut butter in the damn refrigerator again.

He’s picking unreasonable, petty fights. Or is she doing it? Either way, she feels a constant low level of annoyance with him that she can’t seem to turn off.

He stops taking out the trash. It’s a job that’s always just naturally fallen to him, but he forgets one week so she hauls the cans out, and from then on he never remembers to do it.

He’s gone all the time— _going, going, gone_ —and sometimes it feels like it would be easier if he would just leave already; deploy and let her start counting down the days until he comes back.

 

______________

At 4:40am, five minutes before the alarm is set to go off, Logan rolls over in bed, his brain shooting him into instant alertness. The bedroom is cold, a chilly breeze blowing through the open window. Bright December moonlight illuminates Veronica, lying next to him, still fast asleep. Her mouth is open, emitting a heavy, even rasp and one hand clutches the sheet up to her neck.

He fights the natural urge to stroke her skin, wake her up, and instead lays there, drinking her in, for the spare few minutes he has before he has to start his day.

Better to let her sleep, even if he can’t.

Since the announcement that they’d be deploying, the whole squad has been insanely busy. Their days are packed with constant trainings, work-ups, flight evolutions, and inspection after inspection that Logan is required to oversee in his new position as Quality Assurance Officer.

In the normal run of things, his battle group, which had just gotten back in May, wouldn’t have been going out on deployment for at least another three to six months, but situations half-way across the world have exploded and they'd achieved “ready carrier” status just in time to be next in line.

And, as everyone knows, the “needs of the Navy” trump all.

Tank and his new fiancée have had to move their wedding. Frenchie will be missing the birthday he’d promised his daughter he’d be there for. And Logan?

He sighs and settles himself a little more deeply into the pillow.

Signs of imminent deployment had been in the air for months, but Logan had been in some denial about the possibility throughout the late summer—trying to exist only in the halcyon here-and-now, where his job and his personal life seemed for one small moment to exist in perfect balance.

By Thanksgiving that pretense grew impossible to maintain. The number of hours the carrier battle group was racking up and the increasingly persistent rumors were all adding up to one thing: a well-ahead-of-schedule deployment.

When the official word finally came down, he’d felt the blow through a dull cushion of certainty.

Logan shifts gently onto his back, shaking the mattress and causing Veronica to roll toward him a little. Her forehead crinkles, but she doesn’t wake up.

He can’t figure out what is going on in her head, these days. There’s this…this monster under the bed that they are both trying to ignore, and he hates the feeling. He knows he's being snippy in response, picking at little things, but he can’t stop it. In return, he can’t help but wonder if she’s been avoiding him. Her casework seems to have picked up quite a bit recently, but PI work has always seemed cyclical to him; sometimes she’ll have enough cases to keep her gone twenty hours a day, sometimes so few that he wonders how the bills stay paid.

Early in the morning like this, without the distraction of work, it’s easy to let worst case scenarios churn through his mind. Veronica with a gun in her face. Himself in a full spiral toward the ocean. Leaving her. Losing her.

He scoots a little closer to her on the bed, letting the warm wash of her breath across his skin reassure him. Ruthlessly shutting down the fear.

Can’t fly scared.

And yet the demands of the job continue, so he’s either at work, wishing he were at home, or at home, like this, mind constantly spinning with all of the things he needs to accomplish at work.

_One more inspection before Quinn, our fearless commander, finally leaves us for greener pastures; wonder if he’ll let us get by with one evolution instead of two today. Need to get the cars inspected before I leave, make sure Veronica doesn’t have to pay for any maintenance of the Beemer. Would she let me give her Power of Attorney? Access to my checking account?_

Lately he’s been thinking…well, he’s been thinking a lot of things, about their relationship. About the Navy. Big thoughts. Future thoughts. None of them fully formed enough to share with Veronica.

And his time is up.

When he levers himself out of bed, Veronica bites her lip, worrying it between her teeth in her sleep and breathing in deeply. He brushes a hand lightly across her cheek and she turns into it, settling and loosing her lip.

_I love the Navy. I love the Navy._

Lightly he tugs one corner of the sheet up a little further to cover to the bare slope of her shoulder and then reaches over and turns the alarm off before it can wake her up. As quietly as possible, he pads over to the guest bathroom to take a shower.

 

______________

 

“Hey, Veronica.”

Veronica looks up in surprise to find Mac standing in the doorway of her office, holding a sheaf of print outs.

“Mac! I wasn’t expecting to see you today. What’s up, buddy?”

Despite Veronica's best efforts, Mac is officially only a part-time consultant for Mars Investigations, retaining her full time job at Kane Software. Keith is still wary about the expense and Veronica is trying not to make any waves at the moment. 

She flaps at hand at Mac. “Take off your coat, sit down.”

“I’m on my lunch break right now, so I can’t stick around, but I just couldn’t wait to bring this by. That case you sent me from the clinic? You won’t _believe_ who keeps showing that poor kid’s mother’s phone records.”

“She’s calling her ex-boyfriend again?”

“Yup.” Mac tosses the papers onto Veronica’s desk with a weary grimace. “She can’t stay away apparently.”

Veronica shakes her head. _God, people suck._ “I’ll call Raul at the clinic right away. Thanks for this, Mackie.”

Mac smiles grimly. “Glad to. I’m always happy to help take down abusive scum. Anything else you’ve got, send it to me.”

Veronica nods, mentally contemplating her caseload. Mars Investigation's business has expanded pretty significantly in the months since she came back, and especially since she'd passed the Bar and become an officially practicing lawyer. “We should get together, I’ve got a few more cases that could benefit from your expertise.”

“Tonight?”

“Can’t.” Veronica smiles brightly. “Logan’s CO is leaving and there’s this big ceremony thingy I’ve got to go to.”

“Sounds...”

Mac trails off, unable to settle on a word, so Veronica does a little cheerleader pump of excitement with one hand. “It’ll be _fun_.”

______________

 

Battles require armor. This is not naval wisdom; it’s been a basic tenet of Veronica’s life since high school, back when lace-up boots, plaid mini-skirts, and a snarly attitude were her chainmail of choice.

Criminals or mean girls, law professors or—she grimaces—naval Change of Command ceremonies: with appropriate armor, Veronica Mars can tackle them all.

Tonight she is fully girded with her favorite armor: information. She’s looked into the backgrounds and families of the men of the hour: Logan’s much-disliked Commanding Officer, James “Doc” Quinn, and Art “Stink” Carruthers, the Executive Officer who will be replacing him at the helm of the Shadow Hawks. She’s already met most of the men Logan is friendly with in the squad and their various significant others, but she’d looked up everyone she hadn’t met for facial recognition and conversational purposes.

Flipping the lip of the laptop shut in the spare bedroom they use as a joint office, Veronica crosses the hall into the master bedroom just as Logan emerges from the bathroom, trailing steam and the sharp, clean scent of his aftershave. He scans her appreciatively, letting out a low rumble at her fairly conservative wrap dress and tights ensemble.

“Mm…sexy librarian.” He teases as he drops a kiss on the side of her jaw, bouncing past her on his way to the spare bedroom closet where all of his uniforms are kept.

“Shut it.”

She _had_ dressed carefully for the event, though. It was impossible to match the level of weird formality set by Logan’s dress blues—like the fanciest, most intimidating waiter on the Titanic—but she’s unwilling to reveal her continued wary ambivalence about the whole Navy machine via an inappropriate outfit choice.

It’s odd to see Logan quite this chipper. For the past few weeks, he’s been little more than a presence in bed, leaving early, home at weird hours. Of course, her schedule hasn’t been much better. The extra cases she’s taken on keep her away from home, and she feels an insidious guilt at that. Logan is going away soon. The Navy won’t say where, of course, and he won’t say why but neither of the answers are terribly difficult to figure out. Unfortunately, both involve places and dangers she doesn’t even want to consider.

His last deployment had been infinitely harder than she could ever have pictured and that time she wasn’t living with him, wasn’t looking every day at the blank space he should be occupying. This time they have a routine, her day is built around interactions with him, the life she’s come to love _dependent_ on him.

There’s a deep…resentment that bubbles up in her every time she thinks of the Navy, of Logan and of how quiet their empty house will be. It’s better if she keeps some distance. Builds that little wall. Creates a hiding space for herself.

They were supposed to have more time.

In the walk-in closet off the master bath, Veronica steps into a pair of ankle boots, gaining nearly three inches as she zips them up. She walks the few steps over to the bathroom mirror, now cleared of steam from Logan’s shower, and checks her hair, slicked back sharply into a high pony-tail.

Smoothing a deep burgundy lipstick across her lips, Veronica tilts her head at the mirror inquiringly. She smiles at her reflection, letting an eager light enter her eyes and bouncing her shoulders a bit, making the pony-tail sway.

 _No, that’s a little too much Betty._ She tones the perkiness down a bit and squares her frame. It’s a better match for the power lips. She generally tries not to use her work personas with Logan’s friends and colleagues. Even to her decidedly flexible moral code it feels a little shady. Plus, Logan sees right through her every time and then she has to put up with his faux-innocent attempts to undermine her. The day he’d decided to play Jethro to the southern belle she’d put on to sweet talk an old lady still looms large in her memory.

So, normally she wouldn’t use a persona, but tonight she wants to channel a slightly more Betty-esque Veronica. Just a smidge of Pan High’s favorite Girl Next Door to keep Real Veronica from wallowing in her deep skepticism about the whole affair.   

Over the two-plus years that she and Logan have been back together, Veronica has come a long way in her understanding of naval culture. She knows a pretty good chunk of the lingo, she gets that SPECOPS means Logan can’t talk about certain things, and she’s been through a deployment, but she still doesn’t…like it. Can’t bring herself to love the giant machine that is the US Military, no matter how much Logan does.

 _It’s not loving_ the Navy _that matters tonight, Veronica._

She can hear the door to the spare bedroom bang open and then Logan’s voice floats toward her. “Ready to go?”

 _Onward, and into the fray_.

 

______________

 

The Change of Command ceremony for Logan’s squadron CO is held in a hangar all prettied up for the occasion with a dais and a band and a color guard. One massive jet is parked in the vast open space behind the stage. Logan splits off from her almost the minute they arrive to stand in his assigned location and Veronica takes a seat by herself in the rows of folding chairs. The hangar is cold, so she surreptitiously unwinds her large scarf from around her neck and drapes it across her legs as a blanket. The ceremony begins in a burst of pageantry from the band and the color guard, followed by introductory speeches. Outgoing Commander Quinn talks for what seems like an interminable amount of time, prating on about the accomplishments of the squadron under his leadership, and expressing his certainty that, “Commander Carruthers will be able to continue the fine legacy of Navy excellence I have fostered.”

Veronica can’t help turning her head slightly to look at Logan, standing to the side of the cluster of chairs in formation with the other aviators from his squadron. She’s instinctively expecting to make eye contact with him and share a secret smirk or eye roll but he is facing straight forward, body held loosely, hands in position behind his back. Not by a twitch of the eyebrow or quirk of his lips does he convey any sort of emotion at the bloviating of his disliked commander. It’s like looking at a Logan doll.

The ceremony seems to drag on forever to Veronica, lots of speakers and men saluting each other. Behind her, a small child of about four kicks the back of her chair softly, mouth slack and eyes blank with boredom. The men participating, though, are clearly finding deep significance in the ceremony. Everyone in military uniform is rapt on the proceedings; it’s impossible not to wonder at the _meaning_ they invest in all of this. She knows why it matters to Logan—purpose, family, all reasons why she is here and ready to smile and gladhand—but why does it matter to them? Are they strong believers in the uprightness of the US military might? Did they join for the scholarship opportunities? Do they just like blowing things up?

She presses her lips together and forcibly re-directs her thoughts.

The ceremony climaxes in an unveiling. An officer climbs up the step ladder pulled up against the side of the F/A-18 Super Hornet parked near the dais. With tremendous ceremony, he peels off what looks like a large sticker on the side of the jet that bears the name Cmdr. James “Doc” Quinn. Underneath is revealed the new lettering: Cmdr. Art “Stink” Carruthers. The crowd claps loudly at what is clearly the highlight of the evening. Sure enough, shortly thereafter, final salutes are exchanged and the ceremony concludes, transitioning right into a reception honoring the incoming and outgoing commanders.

As the ranks break up, Logan shoots her a quick glance and a smile, but he gets trapped into a conversation by three other men in uniform, so Veronica grabs a firmer hold on her inner Betty and looks smilingly around the room for someone she knows. 

Ileana, girlfriend of Logan’s friend Vic, catches her eye and comes over bearing a small slice of cake on a plate.

“Hi, Veronica. You looked like you could use this.”

“That obvious, huh?” Veronica shakes her fist at the ceiling. “Damn my icing addiction; one day I will kick you.”

Ileana laughs, a flush coloring her warm brown skin. “How are you? Haven’t seen you in a few months.”

“Oh, good, you know. Busy. You?”

“Good, good. ‘Bout ready to drop Sean off at the ship, like usual, he’s picking so many fights, but you know, usual.”

Veronica laughs uncomfortably and the two subside into silence. Veronica licks a gob of icing off of her plastic fork, searching for a conversational gambit that won’t lead to discussing the rapidly upcoming deployment. The last thing she wants is small talk about that nightmare.

“Oh! Allison!” At Ileana’s wave, a petite woman with a chubby baby balanced on her hip comes over to join them. “You haven’t met Veronica yet, have you? She’s Mouth’s girlfriend.”

“No, hi!” She holds out her hand smilingly, “Allison Malubay, my husband Vince just joined the squad.” She points across the room at one of the men standing in the same clump as Logan.

Veronica bends down a little to smile at the small boy on Allison’s hip. _Betty loves babies._ This particular specimen is about eight months old and at premium baby cuteness – more chub than child – with a tuft of wispy black hair rioting upward like a troll doll. When Veronica wiggles her fingers at him, he breaks out into delighted giggles and bats killer eyelashes at her. “Who is this cutie?”

Allison smiles and jiggles him up and down a bit. “Anthony.”

“He is practically edible, my god.” The baby kicks his feet and Veronica chuckles, reminded that she likes babies too, provided they’re not leaking on her. “Your husband is a pilot?”

“Yup.”

“Vince is going to be in the same stateroom as Logan and Sean.” Ileana explains.

Veronica laughs, “I know they’ll miss Saint so much.” She and Ileana smirk at each other, their significant others’ dislike of Saint making a comfortable common ground. “It’s always so weird to hear you call Vic ‘Sean.’”

“Well, someone has to.”

Allison rolls her eyes. “Tell me about it. I don’t want Tony to go through life thinking his father’s name is _Bilbo_.”

The three share a laugh and then an awkward silence as the conversation fails to generate any natural momentum. Veronica searches her brain. Ileana is in marketing, but Alison had escaped her pre-event info search, since her husband is new. _Marketing question…marketing question…_

Ileana rocks forward on her heels. “Um, I’m gonna go say congratulations to Mrs. Quinn. You wanna come?”

“Sure!” Alison brightens. “Veronica?”

“Oh, I’m just—I—“ She twists around, looking for Logan. He’s still in conversation with a few of the other aviators, but he shoots her a look that promises he’ll extract himself soon. “I’ll wait for Logan.”

“Okay then, good to see you!”

The two women wander away, chatting, and Veronica tracks their progress toward the wife of the squad’s former commander.

Over an entire deployment’s worth of monthly emails from Cindy Quinn, naval spouse par excellence, Veronica had formed a certain image of the woman. Logan’s Commanding Officer’s wife turns out to be a plump Asian woman with cool golden skin—rather than the aggressively thin and tanned WASP she had pictured—but the rest of it was pretty on the money. Oversized, trendy jewelry, smooth black hair in a salon-perfect bob, and the cocktail dress version of salmon colored Capri pants.

She’s clearly in her element at the reception, fluttering around gracefully from group to group, while her husband stays glued to the uniforms with the most decoration.

_Logan was right; he will go far._

The new commander seems more gracious, moving around to the men in the squad, shaking hands and spending a few minutes with each. He appears genuine, if a little stiff and grim in expression. As Veronica is assessing him from a distance, Logan comes up behind her and lays a hand on the small of her back.

“How’re you doing?”

She tilts her head back to smile at him. “Fine. Great. It was a really nice ceremony.”

“Long, I know. Sorry about that.”

 _I’ll get used to it._ She widens her smile a notch. _Or Betty will, anyway._

Logan ducks his body down a little so that he can look her directly in the eyes and searches her expression, but seems to accept her smile at face value. “I need to go say congratulations to Stink. You wanna come?”

“Of course.” Veronica holds out her arm, elbow at an inviting angle, and Logan laughs, linking arms with her on the walk across the hangar.

Veronica has met the new squadron CO several times before and likes him well enough--a reflection of Logan’s opinion of his competence more than her own personal evaluation of the man. He’s in demand as one of the honorees of the reception, so the conversation doesn’t last long. Soon enough, Logan is saluting him and then shaking his proffered hand as they turn away.

“Okay, we can go now,” Logan mutters out of the corner of his mouth.

“Oh no. I’m sorry. Not on my account. Don’t you need to stick around and…”

“Kiss ass?” His voice lilts up and he’s Real Logan again. “Maybe, but I’m not particularly in the mood for that right now.”

Veronica shakes her head sadly, “And this is why you’ll never be an Admiral.”

Logan snorts. “Really? And here I thought it was my actual competence at my job that would keep me from advancing.”

They make their way out of the hangar, stopping to take leave of Vic and Ileana first. Veronica is pleased to note that they aren’t the only ones leaving.  _At least we’re not total delinquents._

As Logan pulls out of the parking lot, Veronica sinks into the leather seats of the BMW with a relieved sigh, unzipping her half boots and kicking them off into the space under the dashboard, flexing her stockinged feet.

It’s cold and the marine layer is heavy, making the air clammy and disagreeable, so the convertible top is up. Traffic is predictably congested as they cross over the Coronado Bridge and wend their way through downtown toward the freeway.

“Thanks for coming tonight,” Logan says as they wait at the on-ramp for the Five.

“No problem.”

“I mean it; I know it’s not really your scene…” He shakes his head. “Sometimes it barely feels like mine.”

She snorts. “What do you mean, _Mouth_? They love you.”

“Yeah, but I—anyway. Thanks.”

“Logan.” As they accelerate and merge onto the freeway she reaches out and brushes the top of his hand where it rests on the gearshift. “Stop thanking me. I’m glad to be there with you.”

He pulls her hand to his mouth and kisses the back of it before falling silent. Logan seems like he is in a contemplative mood, his mind on something Veronica can’t fathom. She rests the side of her head wearily on the window, eyes fluttering closed. Sleep is just creeping up on her, when Logan’s exasperated sigh draws her attention.

She lifts her head. “What?”

“Oh, nothing. We just need to stop and get gas; it’s almost empty.”

The comment feels slightly…pointed, since Veronica was the last one to drive the Beemer. She’d borrowed it for an info-gathering run that required a wealthy Amber. She leans over to check the gauge. “It’s barely under a quarter of a tank. We’ll be fine. I’ll get some tomorrow morning before you have to leave for work.”

“I’ll just drop you off and go get some.”

“No, I’ll g—“

Logan purses his lips. “Engines need fuel, Veronica, especially high performance ones. It’s bad for the pump to let it get down too far.”

Veronica’s eyes narrow at the weary pomposity in his tone and she snaps, “Oh _really_? I’ll keep that in mind when I’m driving it while you’re flying planes over North Africa.” The atmosphere in the car changes instantaneously. Her body tenses, a fight she didn’t know she wanted hovering somewhere in the air.

At that moment, a sudden spatter of rain bursts unexpectedly from the skies, pattering down on the cloth car cover like a drum, and sending Logan fumbling for the switch to turn the wiper blades on. Ahead of them, red brake lights blink on in a rolling wave.

“Veronica…”

“What?”

“You know I can’t talk about where we’re being deployed, but—”

She blows a straggling piece of hair out of her face with a frustrated huff. “Logan, stop. You know where you’re going and I know where you’re going. Anyone who watches the news knows where you’re going. Why else would they have pushed the timeline up so much?”

He just shakes his head and Veronica can feel her anger losing an uphill battle against a renewed wave of exhaustion. _He’s leaving._ Tension leaks out of her like air from a balloon.

Leaning her head back against the passenger side window, she watches the reflections of the lights of the city warp and blur across the glass. The rain has made the car into a cocoon, their own insulated foxhole. “What’s going to happen, Logan?” she asks.

Logan takes a deep breath and says, gently. “I’m going to leave. I’ll miss you like crazy, and then approximately six months later I’ll be back. Safe and sound.”

 _You can’t know that_. “This is your last one for a while, right?”

“Deployment?” he asks and she nods in response. “Yeah, most likely. I mean, with the Navy you never know, but we’re scheduled to be back early in July and then my shore duty rotation should start in August.”

“And your shore duty lasts three years?”

Logan nods, his hands quiet on the steering wheel. One of the windshield wiper blades squeals rhythmically against the glass with every swipe, like the world’s most annoying metronome, keeping the beat of their careful conversation. They’re both treading softly to avoid a fight.

“Three years with no deployments,” Veronica repeats. 

“Yeah, I’ll have some other job, not attached to the squadron.”

Her breath is making damp circles of condensation against the window glass. She gives the spot of moisture a swipe with the side of her hand and straightens up in her seat. “You’re still thinking about putting in for a slot as a test pilot, right?”

“Yeah. I’d need good fitreps on this cruise to get a flying job, but I don’t think that’ll be a problem. Stink likes me.”

She smiles wryly at that. “Everyone likes you; you’re practically Mr. Navy.”

Logan smirks in response and then hesitates before continuing. “Veronica, you know a test pilot job could take me anywhere. It could be here in San Diego, or in Fresno or Nevada, or…even Japan.”

“Japan.”

“Yeah. There’s a base there; NAS Atsugi.” Veronica shakes her head, but apparently that doesn’t stop Japan from being a possibility, because Logan doesn’t retract his statement.

“You could go to Japan.”

“I…yeah. I mean, the possibility is there. I’m not looking at any jobs there specifically. I actually…” The squeal of the loose wiper blade sounds loud in his pause. “You know the last time we were deployed I mentioned there were those new planes on board?”

“Yeah, the Lightning.”

“The F-35C Lightning II.” His tone lifts in a way that slightly mocks his own precision, “it’s going to replace the Hornets eventually. There’s some pretty solid intel in the wind that they’re accepting more test pilots.”

“Okay.”

“They’re based out of Elgin, in Florida.”

Veronica closes her eyes momentarily. “I can work anywhere.”

“Yeah, but you can’t work with your dad anywhere.”

She stares out at the passing lights of the suburbs, there are people in every one of those concrete boxes. At least a third of whom, in her experience, are doing something they wouldn’t want their spouse to know about.  “We’re not doing long distance again.”

He takes one hand off the steering wheel and reaches over, lacing their fingers together. “No, I don’t want that either.”

She squeezes his fingers, but slides her hand out of his grip. She doesn’t want to be caressed out of this. They fall silent, the weight of the realization that this isn’t an issue with an easy solution heavy between them. Something will have to be compromised. Some _one_ will have to compromise. The traffic inches forward. They are nearing their exit; nearing home.

Logan’s voice is soft when he admits, “It doesn’t solve this particular problem because it wouldn’t be until after my shore duty, but…I could leave the Navy.”

Veronica shakes her head decisively and immediately. “No. We’ve had this discussion. You love flying and—”

“Veronica.” His voice stops her protest. “Just let me—I’ve been thinking about this a lot since the last deployment, and then with this one coming so soon after…I _do_ love the flying.” He starts to lift his hand to her cheek and then stops, laying it palm up on the armrest of her seat. An invitation. “But I love you more. And the Navy…most of the time I love the Navy, but not always.”

“You…don’t?”

“It’s so, you know, rigid and frustrating sometimes. Seeing Doc move up…Veronica, that guy is a shit pilot and not a very good boss. But he’s going to be a Captain—an Admiral eventually, probably. Because he’s, I don’t know, good at being in the Navy? Stink is decent, yeah, but it’s a crapshoot. I don’t know if I really want to sign up for seven more years of that. Years spent god knows where, and us…” He trails off, shaking his head. “I just don’t know.”

Veronica’s mind is working frantically, volleying shock and guilt and a shameful amount of joy. _Why didn’t I know he was feeling this way? How could I have missed this in our conversations…our emails?_

Logan pulls his hand back to rest on the steering wheel, making the turn onto their freeway exit. “You can’t pretend you’d be sorry if I didn’t re-up.”

“Don’t say that Logan; it’s not fair, I’ve been nothing but—“

“I listened to the voicemails, you know.”

“The...” The voicemails she’d left on what she thought was Logan’s unreachable cell phone; her life-line; her primal screams into the void. “Yeah, those were just…”

“Don’t downplay it, Veronica. I heard how mad you were.”

“How scared.”

“You shouldn’t—“

“ _Scared_ , Logan!” She mimics his tone from a minute before. “Don’t downplay it. Genuinely, horribly scared. This thing you do is fucking scary to me and I’m not going to apologize for it. Something could happen to you out there and I wouldn’t even—I wouldn’t know. It’s awful. It doesn’t mean I want you to _quit!”_

“Maybe it means _I_ want to quit”

“If you quit the Navy because of me, how could we even be together? What kind of a relationship would that be?”

“God, Veronica, if it happened, it wouldn’t be because of you, it would be because of me. Because I decided there were other things I want to do more than take orders from assholes.”

“Other things you want to do more than fly?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“What would you do instead?”

The car turns into their driveway and, instead of answering, Logan depresses two buttons on the steering wheel, one to open the security gate, the other opening the garage. The BMW slides smoothly inside, the abrupt cessation of the rain on the roof bringing a hush to the interior of the car. Logan shuts off the engine, but neither make any move to exit the car, conversation unfinished.

His answer drops into the sudden silence. “I don’t know. You, uh, seemed to think I could find something else worthwhile to do with myself.”

“Of course.” Finally, Veronica reaches a hand up to his face, and Logan bites down gently on the thumb she traces over his lips.

“I’m not sure of anything yet, I just wanted—it’s on the table. That’s all. That’s what I wanted to say.”

She brings her hands back down to her lap and smooths the wrinkles out of the dress. “When do you have to decide?”

“My commitment is up in May 2020—four and a half years. It’s a while, I know, but…”

“We have time.”

“We do.”

“Let’s leave it, then. You’ve got to go soon and I don’t want... Whatever happens, we can figure it out.”

_____________

 

“Hey, Dad?” Veronica’s holler startles Keith, who is in the outer office of Mars Investigations, trying to quietly put his coat on and leave without attracting his daughter's attention.

He sighs and walks back to Veronica’s office, pausing in the doorway. “Yes, darling daughter with the dulcet tones?”

She looks up, an eager light in her eyes. “Come here and look at this.”

Curiosity piqued, Keith walks around behind her desk and leans over her shoulder. Veronica shuffles through the stack of papers on her desk—printed out business emails by the look of them. She plucks out four pieces of paper and lays them out in a specific order and then leans back in her chair, her posture inviting him to examine the documents.

“See it?”

He plants a hand on the desk, leaning over it and scanning the documents. They _are_ business emails, sent by employees of Levant Inc., a small instructional technology start up that had hired Mars Investigations to deal with a case of nascent corporate espionage. The case, a little outside of their usual parameters, had come to them through Veronica’s San Diego lawyer contacts and she’d spent the last two days poring over boxes of documents looking for some hint of collusion.

Keith looks carefully at the emails Veronica had singled out. All sent sometime in the past month, by four different employees. He scans his memory…a new hire in marketing, two people in payroll, and one of the developers. The text of the emails seems fairly innocuous, typical work stuff, responding to requests for reports due, deadlines upcoming… wait. He double checks the send dates and times.

“Veronica, you got ‘em! They leaked information about the prototype.”

She grins at him. “Yahtzee, right?”

“You bet. Ha! I thought this was going to take weeks.”

She hold her hand up. “Slap it high.” Keith slaps her hand with such enthusiasm that they both have to shake out their hands from the sting. “Ow! I like the commitment, but take it easy on the hands old man. These here moneymakers must be protected.”

“Seriously, Veronica. Good job. I never would have caught that.”

She smiles happily. “Aw, my blushes.”

“Well…” Keith checks his watch. “Um, I’m heading out.”

“Home?”

“No. Surveillance. Iris Johnson.”

“Ooh.” Veronica wiggles her fingers through the air. “The Merry Widow. Want me to come with?”

“No, Veronica. I’m fine. Don’t you have your own stake out tonight?”

She leans back, kicking her feet up onto the desk. “Mmhm, but it’s not time sensitive. The trial isn’t for another few months. I can totally move things around if you want back up…or company.”

Keith hesitates, rapping his knuckles on the desk. “No, thanks. I’m fine sweetie. You should clear that case off your docket; things are busy around here.”

She stares up at him challengingly for a long moment before breaking eye contact and shaking her head. “Okay then, _Pops._ ” He winces internally at the inflection she gives the word. “See you tomorrow.”

_____________

 

Veronica has never really been around for the pre-deployment period, before. The sheer amount of paperwork necessary to keep things running smoothly during Logan’s absence is insane. His credit cards need to go on auto pay, he makes doctor’s appointments—he’ll need at least one thorough work-up to be sure there are no continuing effects from his crash—getting his car inspected, pre-paying insurance premiums, meeting with an attorney to go over what he vaguely refers to as “paperwork” but she is pretty sure is an updated will. One Saturday afternoon, they’re sitting in the kitchen, eating a late breakfast and working companionably on their separate concerns—Logan on his paperwork and Veronica on the Stop N’ Go stills—when Logan slides a Power of Attorney form over in her direction.

When the paper interrupts her line of vision, Veronica looks up and meets Logan’s eyes, quiet and questioning. She looks back down at the document, then up at him, and nods a little, wordlessly. He reaches out, thumb brushing lightly against the back of her hand.

“We can go to the notary tomorrow,” she says, proud of the way it comes out matter-of-fact and steady.

The build-up is intense until late December, a week before Christmas. On the night after his final major inspection, Logan comes home, exhausted, at nearly one in the morning. Veronica feels the mattress dip and rolls over to him, wrinkling her nose at the invasion of his cool skin into her warm nest of blankets and sheets, but cuddling into him nonetheless.

With a mighty groan, he relaxes into the sheets, curling around her back and pulling her against him, kissing her neck and inhaling her scent and then sliding one hand under her sleep shirt to cup her breast and swipe a thumb over her nipple.

His other hand slides inside her underwear, running briefly between her legs before moving back up to her abdomen to pull her body closer into his.

Thus reassured that all is in place, Logan falls almost immediately asleep. Veronica smiles bemusedly into the dark before twining her fingers into the hand spread out across her stomach and following him back into oblivion.

 

_______________

 

It’s the little things that are really driving him up the wall.

When she comes home after him, sometimes she’ll park her car behind the Beemer, even though she knows he has to leave first in the morning.

Her boots are everywhere, always seemingly managing to be right in his path as he does his late-night stumble through the dark house to the bedroom.

She nags him about the damn peanut butter, the dishes, the trash, except that’s not right, because she’s not nagging, she’s just asking. Veronica doesn’t nag. She never has.

Sometimes—especially when she’s in a happy mood, or teasing him about something—being with her feels like it physically hurts.

It’s an ache. An ache that tells him none of this will be a problem in approximately three weeks. An ache that whispers how damn much easier deploying was when he was alone.

_____________

_Cliff is out of town_ …  Keith drums the tip of his pen on his legal pad, racking his mind. _Derek and Victor are out after that fuck up last month…Wallace?_ He shakes his head, idly connecting several of the dots on his paper to form a shaky arrow. _Basketball season, he’s got a tournament every weekend. What about…_

He picks up the desk phone and has already half dialed the number when he thinks better of the impulse and lowers the phone back to its cradle.

“Veronica?” he yells. In the outer office, he can hear the thunk of Veronica’s booted heels hitting the ground— _feet up on the desk again—_ and then the familiar sounds of her navigating the creaky floorboards toward his office door.

“What’s up?”

“Is Logan free on Friday afternoon?”

She rolls her eyes. “What’s the matter Tim Taylor, need Al to make sure you don’t blow up the power sander?” She blinks and then shudders. “Ugh. Logan with a beard, potbelly, and flannel is not a good mental image.”

“Vats ze matter?” Keith asks in the exaggerated ‘German’ accent of a cartoon Freud. “You haf issues vit us men unt our manliness?” He leers at her around an imaginary cigar.

“Yuck. Meanwhile, back in a land where I _didn’t_ just puke a little in my mouth, yes, Logan is off on Friday. But he’s still running errands like mad before he leaves. Maybe whatever project you’ve got in mind could wait?”

“This isn’t a project, Veronica. It’s work.”

“Well then, _I’m_ available Friday afternoon for whatever you might need, _partner_.”

“It’s for a job at The Castilian.” Veronica makes a face at his mention of the male-only social club in the wealthy ‘09 district. “I need a second guy for a bump and bait, my usual suspects are all unavailable and—my many years of training notwithstanding—you still fail to do a convincing male swagger.”

“You want Logan to help you with a case? He’s a naval officer, Dad!”

“Hey, it’s nothing illegal. All he has to do is talk to a guy, and if that happens to distract my mark…” He shrugs. “I just wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be, you know, a problem for you. If I brought him in on this.”

“Hey, if you want to use Logan, it’s not a problem.” Her jaw clenches in a way that suggests it is, in fact, a big problem. “Do what works.”

 

_______________

 

It doesn’t come up much in conversation, but Keith Mars has read more than a few romance novels in his day. Not by choice, necessarily, he's more of a Sabermetrics reader when he wants to relax, but cops spend a lot of time hanging around in waiting rooms—hospitals, nursing homes, shelters. A lot of the time there’d be a tatty old paperback languishing on one of the side tables and they’d always drawn him in.

In all of those novels, when the rakish Duke went to his club it was always it was always a wealthy man-cave of dark wood paneling, crackling fires, brass fixtures, and butter-soft leather armchairs. Deals were brokered, social status confirmed, and red meat and the finest malt scotch consumed in rooms swathed in age old symbols of masculinity and status.

The Castilian, Neptune’s 21st century continuation of the gentleman's social club tradition, seems to have deliberately rejected those tropes.

When Keith walks through the door of the club, Logan on his heels, he enters an entryway completely done up in sleek white, steel gray, and light colored wood. The cliff-top location offers a stunning view, through the floor-to-ceiling picture windows, of the winter surf crashing below, itself a study in grays and a perfect complement to the decor.

Keith leans over to Logan, “Okay, so how we’ll play this is—“

A tall, broad-shouldered man in a finely tailored suit comes gliding up to them, interrupting his instructions. “Gentlemen, how may I help you?”

Logan smiles a bland smile. “I’m Logan Echolls. I believe you have us down for guest passes and a tour?”

The man— _Maître d’? Butler?—_ walks smoothly over to a slender podium made of chrome and drift wood and checks the screen of the small tablet that rests there. “Of course, Mr. Echolls and guest.” He looks questioningly at Keith.

“Keith Smith,” Keith resists the natural urge to hold his hand out for a shake; that would clearly be the wrong instinct here. “His father-in-law.”

Beside him, Logan stiffens minutely before clapping him on the back. When Keith glances up at him, the kid’s face is smooth, with a benign expression of wealthy blankness that Keith couldn’t imitate if he tried. _He’s good_.

When Keith had called Logan to ask him to help out with the bump and bait, the original plan had been to brazen their way inside the exclusive club—the only place Graeme Brauer, wealthy tech developer and potentially larcenous businessman, seemed to go with any regularity outside of work. The only place he could be meeting with the secret contact who, his partner suspected, was helping him siphon off company funds into a private account.

The plan was to pose as service people—maybe get one of Keith’s contacts at the power company to disrupt the line so they could come in as electricians, or building inspectors. He’s always done a good building inspector.

When Logan had agreed to help out, though—after firm assurance that he wouldn’t be doing anything illegal, or required to mention his naval rank in any way—Keith had mentioned their target destination.

“Oh yeah, I know it. Dick’s a member. He could probably get us guest passes, if that would be easier.”

Keith had been surprised, but pleased, at the offer. Gaming their way into the building was never ideal—it would severely limit their contact with patrons and could easily go wrong in any one of a dozen different ways. A legitimate entry and personally guided tour of the facilities was much preferred.

“Ah, well, welcome to The Castilian. Brian here—” The manager gestures to a clean-cut young man wearing the button down shirt and gray slacks combo that appears to be the club’s uniform, who is vibrating with the eagerness of a whippet. “—will be conducting your tour.”

Brian leads them through the frosted glass doors that conceal the goings on of the club from the entryway. Behind them is a large, open lounge, with more soaring glass windows, ocean views, and sumptuous white furniture.

“The Castilian has been a cherished part of society for generations, but the facilities you’re seeing are all new—state of the art!—fully rebuilt in 2014.” Brian pauses his spiel for acknowledgment.

Keith stops his surreptitious perusal of the room—he’s only had time to catalog half of the room's occupants, none of whom are Graeme Brauer—with an inward sigh at the necessity of dividing his attention to keep up the conversation.

“Very nice,” Logan murmurs. Brian beams at him and directs the next factoid in his direction.

“Our members consider their club a home away from home. All of the rooms you’ll see on the tour also have more private counterparts that are closed to guests.”

“And how large is the membership roster?”

“Ah.” Brian smiles smoothly, “The management declines to release that information. We assure all of our members of our utmost discretion and privacy. The club does maintain a self-imposed thousand member cap, though.”

While Logan nods in approval, and looks thoughtfully around the room. A sort of expectant energy he seems to be emitting keeps Brian’s attention firmly on him, waiting for any follow-up questions, leaving Keith free to finish his scan of the room. No Brauer.

Just as he comes to this conclusion, Logan turns to Brian, raising his eyebrows and the guide claps his hands together.

“Right! Next up is the library.”

He ushers Logan in front of him through another set of chrome and frosted glass doors. Keith trails behind them into another room dominated by glass, chrome, and several bookshelves full of incongruous leather-bound books.

_When I tell this story to Veronica, I’m definitely breaking out my Robin Leach voice._

The library is empty except for an elderly man dozing in an armchair and they don’t linger long. Brian leads them out through a different door and they emerge into a glassed-in veranda, where a few patrons sit at scattered small white tables, taking advantage of the discretely placed cigar humidors and crisp newspapers.

“The windows are all removable. For most of the year this space is open air. When the temperature cools, we install the glass.” Logan drifts over toward the windows and Brian joins him, gesturing downward. “If you look down the cliffs you’ll see our squash courts, accessible through the private members-only gym and spa on site.”

While they are occupied, Keith wanders a few steps away, trying to get a closer look at one of the men huddled behind a newspaper.

_Nope. Not him._

“I am not a fan of my clothing smelling of smoke,” Logan offers in the pointedly monied southern California drawl he’s been affecting all afternoon. Keith has never heard it from him before. He sounds unlike himself and yet…completely natural. 

“There is also an identical non-smoking veranda on the other side of the club.”

Logan purses his lips and affects mild boredom, which seems to drive Brian into an even more frenzied attempt to impress.

“Ah, well, _wait_ until you see the dining room. Our members enjoy 24/7 dining privileges from our spa menu throughout the club, but the chef serves dinner every night starting from six o’clock.”

The club’s airy dining room is indeed impressive, carrying the decorating scheme to its logical extreme in a massive chandelier-esque sculpture of driftwood hanging from the high ceiling.

Keith stops, pretending to admire it, while Logan carries on.

“And your chef has credentials?”

“He has earned Michelin stars at two separate restaurants. We are very proud to have him on staff.”

_There!_

At last, Keith spots Graeme Brauer. He can feel his pulse pick up in that familiar, addictive way and he gives Logan a small elbow nudge.

 _Game on_.

With an ease that borders on worrisome, Logan starts working the whole group over to the windows near where Mr. Brauer sits, alone at a table, sipping something that looks like scotch.

Brian probably thinks he’s directing the tour, leading them over there at random—just one of the many places in the room where he can illustrate his point about their first-class dining facilities—but Keith watches the way his putative son-in-law deftly steers the interaction so that they wind up directly behind Mr. Brauer.

All he’d asked Logan to do was try to distract onlookers while he got near enough to the mark to plant the bugs—the kid is going above and beyond the call of duty.

When they get to the spot, Logan begins firing question after question at the guide, pinning them in place and making it awkward for Brian to try to steer them away. Their position near the window means that they’re crowding into Brauer’s personal space in a way that is subtle, but would be insidiously annoying.

Logan raises his voice a bit and adds a slight nasal whine. “You mentioned the club’s member cap earlier. I certainly approve of that. Now, I know you can’t discuss the membership with just any person who walks through the door, but surely as a prospective member I have some degree of access to information. Come now, what can you tell me about your demographics?”

“Ah, well sir, our policies _are_ very firm. I can assure you that, were you to become a member you would be protected by the same level of discretion.”

“Good, good, but the beach access road I can see down there.” He points out the window, the gesture taking him a half-step closer toward Brauer. “Surely that is a potential security risk. How do you maintain members only security on that level?”

Finally, clearly annoyed at having his solitary contemplation interrupted by the tour, Brauer pushes away from his table, just as Keith’s perfectly timed step backwards takes him into the man’s path. A brief minute of fumbling and apologies is all it takes to slip the first bug into position on the man’s suit jacket and the second onto his briefcase.

Brian looks back, startled by the brief contretemps, and seems to notice Keith for the first time in a long while, “Oh sir, I’m so sorry! Let’s just move over this way and I’ll show you the billiards room.”

Brauer pushes past, with a shake of his head, and Brian ushers Logan and Keith for the conclusion of their tour. As far as operations go, it is near perfect—unobtrusive, forgettable for the mark, accurate placement of the bug.

Outside, in the parking lot, Keith belts himself into the passenger seat of Logan’s convertible.

Logan turns to Keith, in the monied voice he’s been using all afternoon, but with an underlying hint of wryness. “So what do you think, Mr. Smith, shall we make an appointment for a squash game and massage?”

Oddly, Keith doesn’t feel any urge to hide his gratitude behind sarcasm. “Logan, thank you. That couldn’t possibly have gone better. You were…well, excellent job in there. If you ever get sick of the Navy, I’d subcontract out to you in a second.”

Logan rubs the back of his neck, abruptly Veronica’s ever-so-slightly insecure boyfriend again. “No problem, Mr. Mars.”

 

________________

 

Christmas feels odd to Logan this year. It’s their third together, and their second in the face of an upcoming deployment, but somehow this year holds none of the semi-dazed wonder of the first year, or the crystalline bell-jar-like perfection of last year’s moment in time. This year there are errands, and work, and real life, and its December 21st before he really even realizes the holiday is approaching.

Veronica takes what seems to be a conscious break from her work-related insanity and spends a few days being deliberately chipper about the holiday. Tinsel appears all over their house, wrapped around the banister, draped from their small tree, and wiggling its way into the cracks of his sea bag, his uniform pockets, and, on one disturbing occasion, making an appearance in the crease of his thigh when he soaped himself off in the shower.

Last year’s semi-elaborate dinner isn’t repeated. Holiday cheer is everywhere, but for a while Logan can’t put his finger on the one thing that seems to be missing. The day before Christmas, it hits him: Veronica hasn’t been baking. Last year, the kitchen of the condo overflowed with cookies and nut bars. This year, nothing.

“Hey Veronica, what does a guy have to do to get some snickerdoodles?”

“Learn the recipe himself.”

They have their own gift exchange at home and then head over to Keith’s house for dessert and Christmas movies. While Keith and Veronica bicker in the kitchen about exactly how much butter to put on the popcorn, Logan looks around Keith’s now-familiar house with some degree of personal satisfaction.

He’s had a hand in so many projects here in the last few months that it’s impossible not to feel some affection for the small craftsman bungalow. And for its owner.

He had been kind of…angry at Keith for a long time. In high school, in college, after Veronica fled. Angry at the man's interference with Logan’s relationship. Angry that the man seemed to so solidly dislike him. Angry, maybe mostly, at the fact that the one loving father he knew up close and personal wasn’t his own. Those feelings seem largely to have melted away over the past six months of building and working together. 

Now all that Logan feels when he contemplates Keith Mars—currently loudly insisting that the movie butter spray Veronica brought is “an abomination unto man and god”—is a wistful sort of longing.

Keith has been trying and Logan has been trying and sometimes he thinks maybe that they’re not just making an effort at getting along for Veronica’s sake. That maybe they're creating a small fragile something that doesn't involve her at all. That is just them.

Maybe.

He finally finds his perfect Christmas moment that evening, on Keith Mars’ couch, Veronica snuggled against him half-asleep while they watch _Diehard_ , Keith grumbling and rooting around in the popcorn bowl. Veronica turns in his arms, smashing her bony little chin into his sternum and presses a sleepy kiss to his chest, without any apparent thought for their audience. Keith smiles—he would swear that expression is an actual smile—and says, "Merry Christmas, Logan."

________________

 

“Logan!”

 _Uh oh_.

Veronica, brandishing the kitchen trashcan, marches into the bedroom where Logan is completing his sixty-seventh sit-up.

“Did you remember to replace the bag on this when you emptied it?”

“—sixty-nine, seventy. Well apparently the answer to that is ‘no,’ given your current imitation of Krakatoa. Seventy-one, seventy-two.”

Veronica breathes in through her nose, clearly seeking a state of zen calm that is far, far away. “Yeah, well I didn’t figure that fact out until I’d already tossed the trash from last night’s lasagna in there. There’s marinara all over the inside of the can now.”

“Seventy-three, seventy-four.”

“Would you stop, please? I’m trying to talk to you.”

He raises an eyebrow, and then with a deliberate smirk does one more sit up, “Seventy-five.” Standing up, he grabs a towel off the bed to wipe his face with. “You’re not trying to talk to me; you’re trying to yell at me.”

“I’m not yelling.” And she’s not. It would be awfully hard to through gritted teeth. “But you need to clean this out.”

Logan makes a face. “Leave it for the cleaning service.”

“They’re not coming until Tuesday. What are we supposed to do for a trashcan until then?”

 _Really? Really?_ He breathes out through his nose and shrugs. “I have to leave for work in an hour. You can get take-out for dinner as usual. Toss the containers in the outside trash. Problem solved.”

“Problem solved!?”

Giving up on maintaining his cool, he tosses the towel down onto the floor. “Jesus…fuck, Veronica, I’m busy, okay? Stink has the squad running around fourteen hours a day. I flew two training evolutions yesterday. I get maybe eight hours at home a night. On a good day. I don’t want to _deal_ with this shit right now.”

He turns around, headed for the bathroom and a hopefully relaxing shower. A rush of air and his discarded towel strikes him limply in the back of the neck, sliding down his shoulders to the floor. When he turns around in outrage, Veronica is incandescent, her body deadly still with rage. Like a cobra.

“Just keep going with that thought, Logan. Say it! You wish you were already deployed. Already gone to a place where no one expects a mighty jet pilot to do something so fucking menial as take out the damn trash correctly.”

“Veron—“

“No. Ileana told me she sometimes wishes she could drop Vic off at the ship early, and I didn’t quite get it, but I _definitely_ do now.”

“Fuck.” Logan runs a hand over his face, feeling a sudden stinging behind his eyes. _How did this even happen? Again._ “I didn’t—I’m sorry, Veronica. I don’t even know why I’m being such an asshole.”

He walks over and pulls her into a hug, but she stays stiff in his arms.

“I’m sorry, Veronica.” He tightens his hold a bit. “Damn, I’m sorry. This detachment stuff is ugly, huh?” She gives a jerky nod, still edged with tension, and Logan nuzzles his face into her hair. “I’ve never really dealt with this before and I’m handling it like shit. I’m sorry. I’m just…I’m going to miss you so much and it already hurts. It makes me crazy.”

Veronica pushes herself out of his arms. “It’s not a fucking picnic for me, either, Logan.”

“I know. I love you, Veronica.”

She nods and leans forward to give him a kiss. He can taste the desperation in it, the emotion, everything they’ve both been pushing down for weeks.

 _Fuck_. He puts his hands on her shoulders, smooths them down her arms. _Fifty-five minutes until you need to leave for base._ “Do you want to go for a run?” Hopefully the familiar olive branch will work its magic.

She lets out a big exhale of breath, her jaw still at a dangerous angle. “Yeah. I think that would be a good idea.”

 

____________________

 

Finally, in mid- January, the two weeks of Logan’s pre-deployment leave start. From being gone constantly, a mere ghost in the house, Logan is suddenly there 24/7. He’s got chores, sure—packing, a haircut, a filling he definitely doesn’t want to leave to the ship’s dentist—but for the most part, he’s _there_.

Veronica knows without asking that a lot of the other people deploying are using these weeks to take vacations, visit family, soak in that face time, but her case-load doesn’t really allow a full-stop vacation right now. She’d rather plan for one when he gets back, and really all of their friends and family are right there in Neptune, anyway. Just a nice, normal two weeks feels like exactly what they need.

But Wallace won’t let her forget the reunion.

Hey buddy. You made your mind up yet?  
Wed. Jan. 6th, 2016, 12:36 pm PDT

Yes.  
Wed. Jan. 6th, 2016, 12:45 pm PDT

And?  
Wed. Jan. 6th, 2016, 12:45 pm PDT

Not in a million-trillion years.  
Wed. Jan. 6th, 2016, 12:47 pm PDT

Sooo…I’m getting that you’re open to the idea, but need some time to mull it over.  
Wed. Jan. 6th, 2016, 12:48 pm PDT

As usual, BFF, you read me loud and clear.  
Wed. Jan. 6th, 2016, 12:49 pm PDT

Mac is much more chill about the whole thing—she’s going to the reunion, but doesn’t seem to care that much whether or not Veronica is. Wallace, on the other hand, seems to feel like it’s a personal slap in the face that she has no desire to make awkward small talk with people she didn’t like a decade ago. For the first time in a while, he turns the twin pillars of their friendship—nagging and puppy-dog eyes—against her.

“Come on V, you’re hot, successful, and in a stable relationship. Don’t you want to show that off?”

“Au contraire, I’m in debt for two degrees I barely use and have basically the same job I did in high school. But…wait. Was that an approving statement about Logan? Do I need to have you checked for worms?”

Undaunted, he keeps hounding her as the weeks pass until finally it is the day of the reunion.

The morning is crisp and clear; the kind of California winter day where the watery sunshine barely pierces the chill. Trying to take some of the sting out of her continued refusal to attend the reunion, Veronica had planned to get breakfast with Wallace and Mac. What starts out as a morning meeting at a cafe turns into an intense hour long conversation about equity in public schools and then somehow morphs into the afternoon and lunch back at Logan and Veronica’s house.

By noon, Veronica finds herself outside on their small patio, carefully grilling burgers on the massive grill Logan that bought gleefully but never quite mastered. Through their closed sliding glass doors, she can see Mac and Wallace inside in the kitchen, talking with Logan and prepping burger toppings.

The three of them don’t spend much time together, but there is an ease to their interactions that wasn’t there six months ago—or nine years ago. Wallace’s big heart, while making him prone to emotional over-reactions, also won’t let him hold an unreasonable grudge for very long. They may not ever be BFFs, but she’d known that, given time, he settle into a comfortable rapport with Logan.

She flips the last of the burgers off the grill and onto the platter while, inside, Mac’s posture straightens in an attitude of affront and she lobs a crouton at Wallace. Logan, chopping tomatoes at the kitchen counter, chuckles and brandishes the knife at the pair in a flourishing gesture. Veronica quickens her pace back to the house, sliding the patio door open with a sucking sound and stepping into a cloud of warm air, laughter, and the smell of onions sizzling in a pan on the stove.

“—didn’t say anything!”

“Ah!” Mac advances on Wallace with a gleam in her eye. “You _did_ say—“ She flings another crouton his way.

Logan shakes his head, “Now, now, children. Let’s keep it down. I need peace and quiet if I’m not to bruise the tomatoes.”

Wallace, his hands raised against further assault by carbohydrate, smirks. “Yeah, Mac. Think of the tomatoes.”

“ _You’re_ a tomato.”

“Oh the wit,” Wallace clutches his chest. “I am slain by the wit.”

Mac huffs, clearly deciding to rise above provocation and be the bigger woman—or, potentially, just out of ammo—and spots Veronica standing near the door with a tray of burgers.

“Done, V?”

“I don’t know, _are_ you?” Veronica asks, dryly, pointedly making a wide berth around both Mac and Wallace to drop the burgers off on the counter near Logan. He pauses in his chopping and leans his head down to give her a small smacking kiss.

Mac rolls her eyes. “Logan, you’re so…domestic.”

“Shh,” he whispers confidingly, “I’ve been kind of a shithead lately and I’m trying to make up for it.”

“ _You?_ I’m shocked.”

He grins. “She hasn’t kicked me out yet.”

Veronica drifts away from the trio in the kitchen, looking for something to do. She straightens the place settings on the table, clearly laid by Wallace, and swaps the forks and knives into their correct positions. Behind her, loud conversation continues about Mac’s potential date for the reunion who, depending on who you listen to, either ditched her at the last minute or _was_ ditched by her at the last minute.

The teasing has progressed far enough that Mac’s tone has a little edge to it. “Wallace, why don’t you stop worrying about _my_ evening and start worrying about yours. I’m not the only one flying solo.” 

“Ah, but I have a date _at_ the reunion. A fly little honey, who wanted me bad in high school. Our stars were crossed, the timing was wrong and it was not to be, but we promised that if we were still single in ten years.” He smacks his lips together. “Mm! Remember Alexis Link?”

“Who?” Logan, perhaps unwisely, sticks his oar in the conversation, and Wallace launches into a rapturous soliloquy about Alexis Link’s charms while Mac chimes in occasionally to deflate his reminiscences. Veronica rolls her eyes and moves further away, toward the large rolling whiteboard stashed in the nook that is designed to hold a formal dining room table.

The Stop ‘N Go photos are fastened to it sequentially and Veronica’s fingers drift up to brush over the familiar pixilated images.

 _What am I missing_?

“Veronica!” calls Logan, from the kitchen. “Do _you_ remember Alexis Link?”

“Hm, oh yeah,” she calls back, still staring at the pictures. “Dark hair, basketball cheerleader, pretty in a corn-fed way and not part of the mouthpiece-of-Satan crowd. Her dad was slipping it to Mrs. T on the side—you know, the gym teacher?”

“Eww!”

“God, seriously, V?”

“Yup.”

Logan saunters around the half wall dividing the kitchen from the dining room area where Veronica stands. “So, how is it that I don’t remember this paragon of womanly virtue?” Mac, behind him, scoffs, so he self-edits. “Or, you know, gorgon with a third eye, depending on who you listen to.”

“Mm.” Veronica walks toward him, slow and teasingly seductive, lays another kiss on his mouth and asks, in her brightest most perky voice, “In high school you were a snobbish asshole with more money than manners?”

“Oh yeah.” He grins and his hands circle her waist. “I knew it was something like that.”

The sharp bong of the doorbell sounds suddenly, cutting off conversation. They all look up, confused, but as Logan heads to the door, a series of impatient knocks that morph into an impromptu shave-and-a-haircut follow and the identity of the unexpected visitor becomes clearer.

When Logan checks the peephole and opens the door, sure enough, there is Dick.

“Hey man!” he says, clapping Logan on the shoulder and sliding into the entry way.

Walking through the living room, he nods at Veronica, who is still standing in front of the whiteboard in the dining room nook. “Great Mouse Detective.” And then at Mac and Wallace, who have finished Logan’s task of laying out the burger toppings along the long bar counter that divides the kitchen from the living room. “Other…awesome people.”

Stepping up to the counter, Dick snags a plate and a bun and starts to build himself a burger. “I was in the area looking at properties. There’s actually some nice places in this neighborhood. Who knew?” He piles on the sautéed onions and starts to pick through the pile of burger patties with a fork. “Thought I’d stop in and say hey.” He tops his masterpiece off with a slice of tomato and then looks around. “Mustard?”

“Why don’t you stay for lunch, Dick?” Veronica asks, dryly, coming up behind him.

Dick looks down at his plate, as though wondering when the burger appeared there, and then back up. “Don’t mind if I do, thank you!” He snags a pickle spear out of the open jar and chomps down with gusto.

Logan smirks and claps his hands together. “Okay then. Lunch is served.”

Dick moves to the small kitchen table and starts happily chowing down, while the other four pick up plates from the counter and start to serve themselves.

While they do, Logan asks Dick how his work is going, and in between bites of his burger he provides a surprisingly cogent run down of Neptune’s real estate scene interspersed with lots of “Dude”s.

“…and so, like, a lot of the poors are moving out and gentrifying is becoming easier, you know, without that to deal with…”

Wallace is standing next to her as they assemble their burgers.  He shakes his head at Dick’s rambling and offensive monologue and leans over to her and murmurs, “Logan is looking better by the minute.”

“Still eager to go reunite with the high school crowd?”

They all settle at the table for lunch, the mood somewhat awkward at first. Veronica tries to remember if this particular group of people have ever interacted socially before, but comes up blank. Despite their years of shared history and mutual relationships, she, Wallace, Mac, Logan and Dick have never hung out.

Wallace, always the social buffer, introduces the topic of his basketball team, unearthing the somewhat surprising fact that Dick follows local high school sports. Logan and Mac trade opinions on some old sci-fi movie Veronica has never heard of, and Veronica zones out a bit, her mind furiously pistoning around the insurance fraud case the firm picked up yesterday, her old well-worn thoughts on the Stop N’ Go photos, the next six months of her life.

Logan’s hand settles warm on her thigh under the table and she blinks back in on the people at her table. People who she loves, who are here, now, with her. Dick is addressing Logan, “So, you, uh, know where you’re going yet?” It’s like a bucket of ice water over the conversation.

“Can’t really say, man. Sorry.”

“It’s soon, though, huh?” Dick shakes his hair off of his forehead. His eyes meet Veronica’s briefly and she finds there an unwanted and unexpected moment of commiseration.

“January 25th.”

“Shit man, that’s like two weeks.”

“Yeah.” Logan answers easily, his hand still a warm weight on her thigh. “It’s shit timing, but then, it’s never good.”

Dick pushes his chair back from the table, eyes on the dishes as his picks his plate up and ferries it over to the sink. “That sucks.” He lifts his head, looks around the kitchen without actually fixating on anything. “Um, sorry to crash your lunch, man. I’ve got to go. Client meetings.”

Logan stands and walks over toward him, while Veronica, Mac and Wallace start to clear the table. “Surfing Tuesday morning? Black’s Beach?”

“Yeah, yeah. Of course. Better be something better than those pansy-ass waves we had last time.”

Logan bumps him with his shoulder. “Still enough to rock you, as I recall.”

“Psh, nah.” A thought occurs to him. “Hey man, though, I’ll see you at the reunion! Tonight. We’ll go hard like old times.”

“We’re not going.”

“You sure?” Dick does a half-hearted hip-swivel-thrust combo. “The Dickmeister is ready to go long and deep.”

Mac, dryly from the sink, where she is rinsing dishes, “Yuck.”

“We’ll pass.”

“Your loss.” Dick tosses his hair. “Thanks for the lunch Ronniekins…and gang.”

“Bye, Dick.” Veronica bites his name off pointedly and he grins at the familiar insult.

“By name and by nature.”

Logan gives him a shove toward the door. “We know, man. Trust me, we know.”

After a few more minutes of cleaning up the kitchen together, Mac and Wallace excuse themselves as well, Wallace declaring his need to “pimp up” before going to the reunion.

As Veronica sees them to the door, still bickering amiably about whether Wallace picking Mac up will cramp his style, Wallace tries to make one last plug for the reunion, a cheery: “Pirates?”

“No.”

“Okay, okay,” he grumbles, ducking in for one last hug and then trotting down the front walkway after Mac.

The door closes behind them and Veronica lets out a loud breath. Logan puts down the last of the plates he was drying and crosses the room toward her. He loops his arms around her waist and she stretches up to wind hers around his neck. Logan ducks down and leans in to her creating a small private space with their bodies.

Veronica sighs as she relaxes into the embrace. “You can go to the reunion, you know, if you want. To hang with Dick. Of course, I’ll have to fumigate you when you come home. Lord knows what kind of stink you’ll pick up.”

His arms tighten around her. “God, no, Veronica.”

“You sure?”

“I don’t have any desire to relive high school, and if Dick’s memories weren’t fighting uphill against a decade of bong resin he wouldn’t either. Let’s just…”

 “Go for a run?”

“I was thinking a drive, actually.”

“Getting lazy in your old age?” She pokes him in the, admittedly, rock-hard abs.

“No, I just thought we could take the backstreets up to the PCH. Do a little reminiscing of our own.”

She snuggles in closer, smiles against his chest. “Take the long way?”

“Mm.” He rocks her side to side and she breaks out of his hold, patting his cheek in a condescending gesture.

“Play your cards right and I might let you drive.”

 

________________

 

Veronica wakes up in bed alone the next morning. Logan had an early meeting with the JAG corps about some paperwork, but she has the Sunday gloriously free. Try as she might to lounge, it rapidly becomes clear that she needs to work out some energy.

She grabs her phone—fourteen text messages, mostly from Mac and Wallace about the reunion—and after reading half of them, she chucks it away in disgust. It pisses her off how many angsty teenage feelings this whole reunion thing is stirring up in her. She’d really like to think she was more past high school than that.

Forgoing the shower for now, she tugs on her oldest and most comfortable workout gear and goes for a run along the beach.

The run wears her out in a good way and Veronica decides to swing through her favorite smoothie shop before heading back to the house. She might be self-conscious about bringing her ratty workout gear and sweaty self inside a business establishment, but this place is so close to the beach that it gets a mostly jogger-swimmer-surfer crowd in the mornings.

In fact, everyone else in line is dressed at least as disgustingly as she, if not more so, with the sole exception of the woman in front of her. Tall and slender, with perfectly coiffed black hair, she’s wearing a gold sequined off the shoulder tank top, short flouncy skirt and sparkly ballet flats with the ribbons twined intricately up her calves.

It only takes about fifteen seconds of observation for the pieces to click.

“Gia.”

The woman whirls around and sure enough it’s her. She plants her hands on her hips in an attitude of astonishment. “Veronica Mars! Look at you. You haven’t changed a bit.”

Taking in Gia’s wide-eyed expression and the way she is practically vibrating, Veronica can feel the corners of her mouth tugging up. “Neither have you.”

“I heard rumors you were back in town, doing the detective thing, but you didn’t show at the reunion last night. _So_ much fun. Can’t believe you missed it. And my after party.”  

Rather than make excuses, Veronica just smiles and changes the subject, “I thought you lived in LA.”

“No, no. I wanted to at one point, but I just…” Gia’s expression flickers oddly and her creamy skin pales a bit. “…like, couldn’t tear myself away.” She smooths her hands down the side of her skirt and tilts her head in perfect Valley Girl fashion. “I’ve got a loft a few blocks away from here, it’s totally industrial. But not, like, disgusting industrial. Grungy chic, you know? Ohmygosh, you should totally drop by for a hang.”

Veronica widens her expression into what might charitably be called a smile and searches for a topic of conversation. It hits her. “I was sorry to hear about Carrie.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

The line inches forward. “I know you two were close; Dick was pretty broken up about it.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot you and Logan were together.” Gia attempts to waggle her eyebrows, succeeds only in looking like a slightly demented poodle. “And Logan and Dick are, like, best friends, right? Yeah, Dick would have been devastated. He liked Carrie.”

Veronica can’t help giving in to the curiosity she’s felt on the subject. “ _Liked_ liked her?”

“Carrie was…difficult. Even if Dick…” In Veronica’s pocket, her phone buzzes. She checks it discreetly. Her dad. She’s not due at the office today, and she’s far more interested in gossip about Dick and Carrie than she should be, so she slides it back into her pocket.

“It would have taken someone really strong—or, you know, insanely suicidal—to be in a relationship with Carrie this past year.” Gia finishes, her giddiness, whether natural or substance induced, damped down.

“But I thought she’d gone to rehab, was kicking the habit?” Veronica’s phone buzzes three times in quick succession, causing her to tune out Gia’s surprisingly bitter answer.

“Don’t believe everything you read in the tabloids, Veronica Mars.”

Staring at the messages on her phone screen, Veronica's mind goes momentarily blank with shock.

“Veronica?”

“I’ve got to go.”

Eli Navarro was shot last night.  
Sun. Jan. 10th, 2016, 9:02 am PDT

I’m going to the hospital. Man the office while I’m gone.  
Sun. Jan. 10th, 2016, 9:02 am PDT

DON’T COME. Seriously, sweetie. Do not come.  
Sun. Jan. 10th, 2016, 9:03 am PDT

I’m on my way.  
Sun. Jan. 10th, 2016, 9:04 am PDT

_____________

 

Eli “Weevil” Navarro, age 30; husband, father, local small business owner, and former head of the PCH Bike Club.

Did he really go from Neptune High School: Class of 2006’s “Most Changed” to criminal recidivist in one night?

Veronica taps her legal pad against her lips.

 _And Celeste Kane?_ _Jesus._

When she’d met her father at the hospital, Cliff had explained that Weevil had been shot while allegedly attempting to carjack Celeste.

On the fifteen minute drive between his house and the babysitter’s.

In conjunction with members of a gang he hadn’t seen in a decade.

Veronica tosses her notepad down on her desk and lets out a _psh_ of disbelief into the empty office.

Weevil’s story about stopping to help an unknown motorist in distress was infinitely more logical and therefore, of course, getting no attention from the Neptune Sheriff’s department.

But there _was_ the gun.

Weevil isn’t unequivocally a good guy. Half of the times she’d bailed him out in high school he’d actually been guilty of _something_ —if not the crime he was accused of—and she hasn’t forgotten her strong suspicion that his garage was paid for with money scammed from Hearst College’s card readers.

But when he’d looked into her eyes in the hospital and swore he hadn’t touched a gun since he went to prison, she’d gotten that tingle at the back of her neck that said: _truth._

_Okay, Veronica. What is more likely: Weevil decides to chuck ten years of what seems like genuinely clean living for a crack at Cruella’s SUV, or the Neptune Sheriff’s Department—that bastion of upstanding law enforcement—is planting evidence?_

_Gee, Sheriff Lamb. It’s like you’re trying to convince me there really isn’t a Santa Claus._

Banging in the outer office announces Keith’s return from a mysterious “errand” that’s had him absent for the last two hours. Veronica pushes out of her chair with determination. Time to go beard the lion in his den.

________________

 

There is little that could be less welcome at this particular moment to Keith than the familiar sight of Veronica, arms crossed belligerently, waiting for him in the lobby of Mars Investigations.

“Oh, kiddo. I figured you’d have gone home.” He shucks off his trench coat and drapes it over one arm, keeping his expression bland as he heads for his office door.

She plants herself between him and his haven. “What did you find out?”

“Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

He leans to the left to go around her and she counters with her body. “What did you find out? Where did you go?”

“It’s not—“ _Disarm. Distract._ “How did the Gupta stake out go this afternoon? Get the money shot?”

“Dad.”

_That worked a lot better when she was six._

Finally, Keith just plows forward, using the element of surprise to force Veronica to yield. He makes for his office, leaving her trailing behind.

“Dad, when are you going to tell me what is going on with Weevil’s case?”

She makes it inside before he can close the door against her and he retreats behind his desk, seeking authority. Surety. “Veronica, let me handle this. It’s my case.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Yes it is. We split cases. I don’t pry into the work you do for that clinic, show me the same courtesy.”

“This is different.” She paces toward the desk, plants her hands on the edge and leans forward. “This is a Mars Investigations case, right? I’m part of the firm.”

“Veronica—”

“I’m _part_ of the firm,” she continues emphatically, “and Weevil is my…well, he’s Weevil.” Eyes boring into his, she speaks with quiet deliberation. “If you can’t let me in on this one, I can’t keep working here.”

Her words seem to freeze the atmosphere in the room, a moment suspended in amber. Keith stares, caught, at his daughter and she stares back, defiant, determined. _Hurt_.  

“You’re letting me work here—grudgingly I might add—but I can tell that you’re still hoping I’ll come to my senses. Take a cushy law job.” Her voice is soft, almost gentle, “I’m _not_ going to, Dad. If I have to, I’ll take a PI job for the San Diego clinic. But I don’t want to do that; I want to work here. With you. But it’ll only work if it really is _with_ you. Not for you.”

Keith swallows. “Partners.”

Veronica nods.

Everything inside his head feels tight and hot. Shaky. He takes a deep breath. “Veronica, when you were a baby, I swore I’d never let any of this near you.” He waves a hand to indicate the files spread around them. “You were so little and pink and…ugly.”

“Hey!”

“I only tell the truth.” He grimaces. “Seriously. Baby acne.”

“Right. But now here I am, a spot-free grown woman…” She pauses, letting the silence hang invitingly and Keith focuses on her, waiting for the ever-present echo of the sad sixteen year old, the hardened nineteen year old, but they don’t come. She’s just Veronica. His daughter and a damn fine investigator.

His partner.

_God, how did I get so lucky?_

“Okay.” He takes another deep breath and lets it out in a steady stream. “Okay.” Resting his chin on his folded hands, he takes the plunge. “I’m pretty sure there’s a conspiracy going on in the Sheriff’s Department. Evidence going missing, cases closed for no good reason. Someone is funding it at a higher level and it is trickling down.”

“The convenience store cases,” she remembers. “That blurred still at the Stop N’ Go…it’s the edge of a uniform sleeve.”

“Yeah, I think that’s part of it. Somehow the big developers in the area are tied in. There’s major money behind this somewhere. You remember Deputy Gills?”

Veronica nods. “You fired him in that underage drinking sting back in college.”

“Yup, well he’s back on the force and driving a Porsche.”

She rolls her eyes. “Subtle.”

“Geniuses they’re not.” Keith reaches under his desk, triggers the hidden compartment, and unearths a file folder stuffed with interview notes and speculation, timelines, receipts, anything he’s been able to scrape up, however thin, that might prove a connection. “I’ve been working on Jerry. Trying to get him to give me something, anything. With Eli’s case…I think he might be ready to crack.”

He tosses the folder and it skids heavily across the desk to Veronica. She places a hand on top, but doesn’t open it. “Sacks has been taking money?”

Keith shakes his head. “I don’t think so. I’m not sure.” He doesn’t want to be sure. Jerry was never great shakes as an investigator, but he’d always been honest.

Veronica straightens up, drums her fingers on the folder. Already he can see her mind busily working over the implications. The familiar sharpening behind her eyes as she gives the problem her full focus. There is an almost giddy feeling to sharing this information with her, after so much time and effort spent trying to conceal it. It feels almost…powerful. They’re going to figure this out.

“Okay, well I’m in.”

“Yeah, I know. We’ll talk strategy, but it’s late.” He nods at the folder. “Take that home and look it over. Come over for dinner tomorrow night and we’ll go over things.” He grins. “I’ll make lasagna.”

She scoffs and everything feels all right. How it should be. “Sheesh, I already said I’m in. You don’t have to bribe me.”

_____________

 

The Mars family lasagna, by tradition, is gooey and decadent, just the way comfort food should be. After Lianne left, father and daughter had subsisted mostly on convenience meals and whatever experimental cooking Veronica had the time and energy to wrestle together around school and cases. The sole exception was her father’s lasagna; the one thing Keith always cooked from scratch. The recipe had been learned from a college girlfriend and improved on over the years until its preparation became almost therapeutic for the two of them.

When Veronica and Logan show up that evening, the onions and Italian sausage are already simmering on the stove and Keith is pulling ingredients out of the refrigerator. “Here,” he says, shoving a handful of loose tomatoes at Veronica, “make yourself useful and wash these.”

He leans around her to offer Logan a handshake, “Logan, good to see you.” He nods at the bowels of the refrigerator, “See if you can find the ricotta in there, will you? I bought three tubs, but damned if I can find them. Old age; it’s a bitch.”

Logan grins, “Why sir, you practically exude boyish charm. You can’t be a day over thirty.”

From where she is rinsing the tomatoes over a colander, Veronica snorts, “Making me about nine, and you a creepy pedophile.”

After rummaging around a bit, Logan emerges triumphantly holding two tubs of ricotta, a ball of mozzarella and hunk of parmesan perched precariously on top. “Ta da!”

“Oh, excellent,” Her dad relieves Logan of part of his burden. “The Mars family secret recipe is saved!”

Logan laughs, “The secret is enough cheese to give pause to a Wisconsin dairymaid, right?”

“Shh!” Keith says, holding a finger to his lips, “It’s less secret and more,” he tilts his head significantly in Veronica’s direction, “preventive measure. She gets cranky when the sauce to goo ratio is off.”

“You bet your ass I do.” Veronica hauls the tomatoes back over to the kitchen island and sets them on the counter near the cutting board. “Now get chopping, old man.”

Keith’s retort is cut off by the sound of his cell phone ringing in a holster on his belt. He lifts it, checks the number and answers, stepping a little away from Veronica. She resists the urge to follow and idly sweeps up some bread crumbs that are strewn on the countertop into a pile, listening intently to Keith’s side of the conversation.

“This is Keith.”

He purses his lips together, glances at Veronica and Logan, both very clearly listening to the conversation.

“Just give me two minutes, okay?” He nods. “All right. Bye.”

He snaps his old fashioned flip phone shut and then hesitates, looking at Veronica.

“Partners,” she reminds him firmly.

He nods. “That was Jerry. He’s outside. He says he has…information. I think this might be it.”

“Good, okay. Let’s go.” She turns to Logan. “Can you keep an eye on the sausage, maybe chop the veggies? This won’t take long.”

“But of course,” Logan’s terrible French accent and flourishing fingers make her laugh, but his eyes are worried. She brushes her hand down his arm.

“We’ll be right back.”

Outside, her father points to Deputy Sacks’ car, a small hatchback, fifteen years old if it’s a day, parked in the parking garage attached to the condo complex at the end of her father’s block. They walk briskly toward it, Veronica clutching the strap of her shoulder bag, which she’d grabbed as they ran out of the house.

They reach the car and Sacks does a double take when he sees her climb into the backseat, but doesn’t seem terribly surprised.

“Veronica. Nice to see you back in town.”

“Deputy. Glad to see you’re still rocking the ‘stache.”

 

_____________

 

Logan hums tunelessly as he makes careful, precise slices with Mr. Mars’s large kitchen knife, trying to keep his mind off whatever might be going on outside. Veronica hasn’t told him much about her current caseload, but he knows about her preoccupation with the Sheriff’s department, and Weevil, and he’s pretty sure the ‘Jerry’ who Keith mentioned is Deputy Jerry Sacks, Neptune’s own answer to Barney Fife.

He’s just reached the end of the bell peppers and is grabbing the first tomato when a loud, almost vicious, squeal of tires and the sound of a car crash send him racing out of the door, the tomato still clutched in his hand.

By the time he makes it to the end of the driveway, a white truck is speeding away from the scene of an accident, leaving behind a car partially crumpled in the center of the street about a half a block away. Logan knows a single moment of heart-stopping terror before the small figure of Veronica crawls out of the back seat, staggering around. The relief is like ice water, like the time he tried Special K in college—floaty and free. He drops the tomato. A splat of red on the concrete. A stain by the immobile feet that he can’t seem to feel. But she’s going back. Back to the car. Her father.

_Keith._

Logan starts running.

Another squeal of tires. Looming, onrushing headlights.

 _Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck._ Veronica is pulling at the driver’s side door, wrestling with Keith’s heavy— _dead?_ —body. Tugging and pulling.

And Logan is still running, moving, but the world seems to have gone fucked up all of a sudden because no matter how fast his legs move he doesn’t seem to be getting any closer and no matter how loudly he yells he can’t seem to hear himself _Veronica can’t hear me can’t get to her get to her—_

“VERONICA!”

She’s got Keith out of the car, but he’s slumped on the asphalt, too heavy for her to move by herself. She’s pulling and tugging at him and Logan is gaining, closer, almost there.

He can see Veronica’s jaw set firm and she heaves and the van is close, god so close, and Logan is getting closer. Closer.

Close enough to watch as the van careens by, running over one of Keith’s feet with a sickening thump and missing Veronica by mere inches before smashing into and obliterating the drivers’ side of the small blue hatchback.

Close enough to watch helplessly as Veronica, partially trapped by her father’s dead weight and unable to get her hands under her, trips and goes down hard.

Close enough to hear the meaty crack of her head smacking against the pavement and see her body go limp right as he skids to a stop next to her.

Close enough.

But not there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, so, so many thanks to the fabulous **marshmallowtasha** who was very patient and encouraging with me through the long months it took to get this finished. I can't appreciate her advice enough.


	12. January, 2016

Veronica’s hospital room doesn’t have a lot of beeping, at least. That’s what Logan remembers the most from the room where he first woke up after his own crash; the damnable, interminable noise.

If there was a beeping machine in this room where Veronica lies, unmoving and battered, Logan is pretty sure he would have ripped it out and busted it to pieces by now.

Hospital rooms should definitely come with punching bags.

_She’ll be okay. The doctor said she’s okay._

Immediately after the ambulance had arrived at the hospital, Keith had been wheeled off to the operating room. Veronica, who had regained consciousness enough on the ride over to be querulous and contrary in a punch-drunk likely-concussed kind of way, had tried to follow him. Two nurses had had to restrain her, struggling to push her down onto a gurney while she batted feebly at the hard plastic collar around her neck.

Not until Logan, terrified that she would do herself further injury, had promised to go check on Keith while Veronica got herself looked over had she slumped back, the fight leaving her body.

Long hours later, Keith is stable and out of the first of what will likely be a series of surgeries to repair his injuries. And Logan is here. In a hospital room. Staring at Veronica and willing her to wake up, _please dear god just wake up and be okay._

The harassed doctor he’d passed on his way into the room had told Logan that Veronica had either a serious Grade II or a mild Grade III concussion and that they would need to keep her overnight in the hospital to monitor her symptoms.

The nurses had had her awake before he’d come back to the room, but since he’s returned from waiting for news about Keith, she’s barely stirred. She’s due to be woken up again in thirty minutes, but Logan can’t help the desperate desire he feels to see her awake now. Alive.

He cups her hand, sandwiching her cold fingers between his palms and rubbing lightly.

_Wake up._

As if in answer to the silent plea, Veronica’s fingers twitch in his grasp. His attention snaps to her face and he squeezes her hand. After a long minute, she inhales and blinks her eyes open sleepily. Logan holds his breath as she turns her head slowly and carefully to look over in his direction. He fixes a smile on his face. Her eyes focus and she smiles weakly in return when she sees him sitting there.

“Hey, baby,” she mumbles.

That endearment from Veronica—who never _ever_ uses endearments seriously—completely fucking breaks him. Logan can feel his face crumple and he curls forward, collapsing into her, retaining only enough control over his body to try not to jostle the bed. Sinking his forehead into her stomach, he breathes harshly into the rough hospital blanket.

Veronica's hands pat weakly at the back of his head, his shoulders, as he grips her torso and gives in to a brief mental collapse.

“Whoa, hey shhh…what’s…” Her fingers tighten suddenly in his hair as awareness kicks in. “Dad?” Her voice trembles.

“Oh sh-shit, no. No.” Logan can barely get the words out through the shudders wracking him. Breathing deep, harsh spasms against the tightness in his chest, he works his way up her body until his face rests against her neck, the beating of her pulse fast and reassuring against his cheek. “He’s fine, Veronica, fine. You got him out. He’s banged up pretty badly, but he’s going to be okay. You got him out.”

“Thank god.” Veronica relaxes under him and resumes stroking her fingers through his hair.

He was okay, okay until she woke up, but now he can’t stop playing it over and over in his mind. How close he came to losing her—losing everything. Logan tries to pull himself together, face buried in her skin, breathing in her scent as an anchor, but the hospital smell underlying everything keeps swamping him and sending him right back down into the terror. The part of his sleeve that has dried stiff with Keith’s blood scratches obscenely against his cheek.

_Get it together, asshole._

Veronica breathes quietly for a long time and he might have thought she’d fallen back asleep if not for the nails rubbing a gentle rhythm against his scalp. When she finally speaks, her voice sounds a bit stronger. “Dad’s fine. I’m fine?”

“Yeah.” His answer is rough and muffled against her neck.

“You’re fine.”

Logan lets out a watery, choking laugh at the surety in her voice. “Yeah…” He pulls back just slightly, trying to sit up, pull away from her and be strong; but he can’t quite make it, instead resting his forehead against her collarbone. “No.”

Her fingers drift downward, playing idly with his ear. “What’s wrong?”

Somewhere out in the hall, an alarm of some sort goes off, the beeping faint but insistent.

“I couldn’t get to you.” Even to his own ears he sounds about five years old and scared as hell. Fuck if she isn’t the only person in the entire world he’d ever let hear that particular tone in his voice.

And the only one who could cause it.

“I was—I could see you, see the truck—” He breaks off, takes in a shuddery breath and presses a small, desperate kiss to her neck, “but I couldn’t get there in time. I wasn’t fast enough.”

“Oh, Logan…”

“Yeah.” He inhales and finally sits up, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, “What _happened,_ Veronica? Who was that? No one will tell me anything since I’m n—” He cuts the thought off mid-word, because whining on top of his mental breakdown is just too much. “Who was it?”

“I don’t know.” She fists the sheet in her hand. “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.”

Before he can even begin to feel the terror those words imply, she moves on. 

“How’s Dad?”

He lets one finger trace her hairline very lightly. There’s a livid purple scrape just starting to swell into a bruise. “He’s…pretty banged up. Out of surgery, and stable, but likely to have more soon.”

“Sacks?”

Logan bites his lip and he can see the moment when she reads the answer in his eyes. He shakes his head. Veronica seems to shrink back further into the pillows, looking abruptly even more beat up and exhausted than she did before.

She breathes in and out wearily. “Can you go check on Dad?”

“Okay.” He squeezes her fingers. “After the nurse comes and checks you out. She’ll be here in about a half an hour.”

“No.” Her voice is taking on that slurred, dreamy quality again that tells him she can’t fight sleep for much longer. “Go now, okay? I want to…I need…can you?”

The idea of leaving her right now feels impossible. “Yeah, if that’s what you need.”

“It is.”

He leans forward and kisses her lightly. “Sleep, okay? They’ll be in to wake you up soon, but you need rest.”

Veronica nods, already half gone to the world. Reluctantly he turns around and starts to leave the room.

“Wait.”

He turns, watching as she struggles against sleep, eyelashes fluttering against her cheek. Her voice is slurred as she continues.

“Don’t go.”

Logan is across the room and stroking fingers down her cheek between one word and the next. “Okay.”

She leans her head into his touch and breathes in slowly through her nose. “No, I mean…go…see Dad. But…come back…after.”

“I promise.”

\-----------------

 

It takes a full fifteen minutes after Veronica subsides back into sleep for Logan to tear himself away from her again and venture to the ICU to find Keith Mars. He’s about half sure they won’t let him—a random un-related dude still covered in gore—in to see the patient, but he doesn’t want Veronica to wake up to no news about her father. After managing to find out that Keith has been removed from the surgical recovery area, he’s standing, uncertain, in the hallway outside of his private room, when a nurse in pink scrubs emerges. “Are you Logan?”

“Yes.”

“Your father-in-law wants to talk to you.” She smiles. “He said you would be in his daughter’s room. He’ll be glad to see you.”

She moves on with another smile and Logan walks cautiously into the room.

“Mr. Mars.”

Oh man is it hard—disorienting, painful—to see this titan of a man crumpled and shrunken in a hospital. Keith Mars’ skin is pale and sallow against the smears of yellow-orange betadine left behind from the surgeries. It’s impossible, but in the short time since he and Veronica left the house to meet Sacks, he seems to have lost weight and aged twenty years. Logan is fiercely glad that Veronica isn’t seeing her father right now.

Keith’s eyes open and focus on him. “Logan.”

“Don’t try to talk, sir.” Logan finds himself unconsciously standing at parade rest by the side of the bed. “I just came to check on you. Veronica is fine. She’s resting, and not happy about it, but she’s fine. They’ll release her tomorrow morning.”

“Wha’s wrong…?”

He swallows. “She hit her head.”

Keith huffs a painful chuckle of a laugh. “Hard…hurt that.” He coughs. “Stubborn.”

Logan’s smile feels raw. “Yeah.”

Keith subsides into silence and Logan shifts his weight slightly. “I’ll let you get some rest. Veronica just wanted me to check on you. She’ll be here as soon as they release her in the morning, I’m sure.”

“Veronica…” Mr. Mars sounds so _weak_. Logan bites his lip.

“She’s fine. I swear, Mr. Mars.”

“I wan’ to ask you to…keep her safe. Keep her…out of this,” Keith says.

“Sir…” Logan’s stomach sinks and he shakes his head helplessly. “She’s smart, sir. I know she’ll…”

Keith’s smile is wry and painful. “Be careful?”

“She promised.” It comes out smaller and more tentatively than Logan would like, so he tries again. Reaches for down deep for his certainty. Pictures Veronica. “Last time I left, she promised. And you didn’t raise her to break promises.”

Keith nods tiredly. “Logan. About… high school…”

“Yeah.” Logan dips his head down. _This is as good a time as any, I suppose._ “I’ve apologized to Veronica, but I never…I’m sorry, sir. Sorry for the way I acted in high school.”

“No.”

 _No?_ There’s a sharp ache in his chest as Logan says, slowly. “Okay. Okay, I guess I underst—”

“No.” Keith is making small restless motions, as though struggling to sit up and Logan, worried, lays a hand on his shoulder. He subsides. “Didn’t mean…high school. Meant…sorry, can’t think. Meant everything before…since.”

Logan shakes his head. He can’t quite tease out what exactly Keith is trying to say. “I should go. You need rest. Sorry for keeping you up.”

“ _No_.” It comes out with surprising force. “ _I’m_ sorry. I’ve been—treated you badly.” He huffs a laugh. “Was a dick. You were…good...”

Logan stutters. “I’m—I’m hardly good.”

“ _Are_ good. Good for her. Sh’loves you.”

He grips the rail of Keith’s bed. “I love Veronica more than anything.”

“I know. It’s…good. Good man.”

Keith’s eyes are drifting shut and Logan searches for something to say around the enormous lump in this throat.

“I…” He clears his throat. “I know Veronica will want to come by in the morning once she’s cleared to leave. We’ll see you then. Get some rest.”

Keith nods weakly and lets his eyes fall fully closed. “Thanks, son.”

 

\-----------------

_“—ronica? Veronica.”_ A voice. Female. Unfamiliar.

 _“…wake her up?”_ Logan. _“Veronica? Time to wake up now.”_

Because he asked, she pries her eyes open, even though it feels like there are lead weights sewn to her lids. Her eyes water against the glare of bright light that greets her; everything is one giant corona, like staring directly into the sun. She squints, trying to block some of the light, and shapes start to float into view. Finally, the familiar long shape of Logan’s face, hovering over her, becomes clearer.

“Dad?” She manages, and struggles to focus as he answers, but his words wash past her.

Everything still feels…fuzzy. Off. There’s an immense pressure concentrated inside her scull somewhere, and trying to locate it more precisely than that makes the room swim around her.

It’s Logan’s expression—worried, but… _what’s the word?_...sincere?—that reassures her about her father’s condition more than the snatches of his explanation that she catches.

She’s just tired. So tired. If she could summon the energy, she’d tell Logan to just turn out the damned light and get into bed already.

“Veronica? Veronica?”

“Uh?” She focuses back on the nurse, who is asking her questions.

“Do you know where you are?”

“Hospital. Mm…Neptune General. Can I go home?”

“Not yet. What day is it?”

“January 5th. Or s’it the 6th by now?”

The nurse smiles patiently. “Still the 5th, doll. Last one. What’s your address?”

It takes a second for her to summon the numbers. “8770 Paloma Way, San Diego. It’s a nice house. Green shutters.” The nurse looks across the bed at Logan, who nods minutely in confirmation.

“Okay then, doll. You’re sounding good. We’re going to come back in another hour, just to check on you again, but in the meantime get some sleep, hm?”

Veronica’s eyes slide closed almost immediately. Logan will figure the bed thing out on his own, she’s sure. The rubber soles of the nurse’s shoes squeak rhythmically as she walks toward the door, then pauses.

“Sir?”

Veronica forces her eyes back open to see the nurse making an ‘after you’ gesture in Logan’s direction.

Logan’s jaw tenses, the tendons in his neck standing out in sharp relief. “Yeah, okay. Just another minute.”

The nurse’s eyebrows go up in disapproval, but she exits, leaving the door open.

“What’s going on, Logan?”

“They won’t let me stay. Family only after visiting hours.” He makes a visible effort to relax and gives her a weak smile.

“But when _you_ were in the hospital…”

“Yeah, well apparently Neptune General is a little less compassionate than Scripps Memorial.”

“Good old Neptune.” The throbbing in her head is making a painful crescendo. It all seems so unfair.

“Hey.” Logan bends down, hands gently framing her face, thumbs stroking across her cheekbones. “I’ll be back the minute the doors open in the morning. Seven am. Sharp.” His eyes are warm and slightly anxious on hers. “I’ll expect you to be your usual snappy self, so get some sleep.” He must see the uncertainty drift across her features, because he nods over toward the small nightstand next to the bed. “They brought your bag in from the…” He swallows hard. “I got your phone out, it’s charging, right next to you. Call me if you wake up, okay? Anytime. Call me.”

The nurse comes back and stands in the doorway, holding the door open for Logan to exit. “I’m sorry, sir. Family only.”

He gives Veronica’s face one last caress and presses a kiss to her forehead before stepping away from the bed.

“Yeah.” Logan’s tone is brusque as he leaves the room, brushing by the nurse with less than his customary politeness. “I get it.”

 

\-----------------

It’s a long wait in the morning for Veronica to get discharged. She is up and ready to leave at six-thirty, feeling remarkably better, but the rest of the hospital doesn’t quite seem to be moving on her timeline. It’s ten o’clock; the nurses were supposed to get the doctor forty-five minutes ago, and if they don’t let her out soon to see Dad she’s going to stage a jailbreak. Frankly, the only thing that has stopped her from barging down to Keith’s room already is that Logan said he’s knocked out on pain meds. She toys irritably with Logan’s fingers and plots the demise of absentee nurses.

Logan has had a hand on her constantly since he walked back into the room at five minutes before seven this morning, bypassing without any apparent qualms the disapproving glance of the nurse who was in Veronica’s room doing a reflex check.

She doesn’t even think he knows he’s doing it—running his fingers softly up and down her upper arm, encircling her wrist in a loose shackle with one large hand, playing lightly with her hair, a small rub of the muscles in her shoulders—but she’s not complaining. After last night… She bites her lips and lets her eyes drift closed, giving in to the throbbing tenderness in her head.

Logan has spent the morning in performance mode, sprawled across various pieces of hospital furniture, narrating ridiculous dialogue for the characters in the soap opera on one of the three default channels the hospital TV picks up, cooking up elaborate schemes for escape involving a harness and a bed sheet rope. Somewhere about forty-five minutes into their wait, he'd gone quiet, leaning down and resting his head on her leg as she sits upright in the bed, not really watching TV. The weight of him against her is a comforting counter-pressure to the headache that threatens to break through her skull.

“I’m going to figure out who did this.” Veronica says it more to the blackness behind her eyelids than to Logan, but it sounds loud in the room. She opens her eyes to find him looking at her, the skin across his face taut, his eyes so dark they look almost black in his suddenly white skin.

“Yeah, you said that yesterday.” He sounds so _tired._

She looks down at Logan, studying him. The bright fluorescents of the hospital room are harsh on his skin, making him look sallow and sickly; there are deep bags under his eyes that tell of what was likely a sleepless night. 

Veronica rests her hand on the back of his head, fingers combing through his hair. He'd planned to get it buzzed short this weekend before everything happened, so it's just slightly longer then regulation length right now. The cool strands slip through her fingers and she remembers doing the same thing while he was still in the coma, searching his swollen features for echoes of the boy she'd known. 

_When they made him leave last night..._

Nebulous thoughts have been swirling in her mind for months, and suddenly everything clicks together—that same feeling of complete rightness as when the last puzzle piece slides into place on a case and she finally knows what to do. She has a plan of action.

_________________

 

Veronica lets him take care of her for a grand total of three hours. As soon as she is released, they go straight to Keith’s room. The nurse there, citing ICU rules, but possibly just reading the naked plea in Logan’s eyes, tells Veronica that she’s not allowed to stay in Keith’s room for more than fifteen minutes at a time and, oh, so sorry, they’re just about to close the waiting room for cleaning.

The fact that Veronica lets him bundle her into the car and take her home after that is a sure sign that she’s fading fast. She falls asleep on the way home and he carries her carefully into the house, settling her into their big bed with a tall glass of water and extra pillows, before turning the lights off and crawling in next to her. With her warm and safe in their bed, breathing with that familiar heavy rasp, Logan relaxes for the first time in almost two days.

As soon as she wakes up, though, Veronica drags herself into the shower, re-appearing in the kitchen looking wan, with dark purple circles under her eyes, but fully dressed and ready to go.

She hitches the strap of her bag higher up on her shoulder. “Drive me back to the hospital to see Dad?”

He forces some soup down her and off they go. The next day she’s driving herself, stopping by Mars Investigations to close some files and “do some paperwork,” spending hours at the hospital.

He has to admit that Veronica does genuinely seem to recover quickly. She stops holding her head gingerly after the first full day out of the hospital. Her color returns to normal, and her continued tiredness can be chalked up to the hours she’s putting in at her Dad’s bedside.

It’s too terrifying to think about what would have happened if she _wasn’t_ a quick healer; about the rapidly approaching deployment and the fact that he couldn't stay with her if she were still in the hospital. Not without an AWOL charge and jail time. Logan pushes that thought away, along with lots of other things he’s trying not to dwell on.

After Keith’s second surgery—to repair the shattered bones in his legs and feet—Veronica hauls home a pile of papers from the office and retreats to their guest bedroom/office to “get some work done.”

Logan knocks hesitantly on the door frame and she jumps, quickly shutting the dark orange folder in front of her.

“Veronica, I think we should pay your Dad’s medical bills.”

She shakes her head. “He’d never let us.”

Logan stops, momentarily stymied. He’d been prepared for an entirely different objection. “I know, but there’s ways around that. An anonymous donation…” 

“Nah, he’d figure it out in a heartbeat.”

He walks over to stand next to her and she rests her head against his hip. Twining his fingers through her hair, he flips the darker blonde strands underneath to the top. Flips them back. “I never got why you guys didn’t sue my Dad’s estate to cover that first round of hospital bills from—” He grimaces. “You know.”

Veronica looks up, shocked, and his hand slides out of her hair. “We would never have taken your money like that!”

“Yeah, so much better for me to spend it on booze and the penthouse. That money _really_ did some good.” He gives a sarcastic flick of his fingers.

“Logan.”

“Okay, okay. Sorry. But now it’s _our_ money, so…” He waits, probing the air for the expected objection. The objection that has always come before. For a second it seems like Veronica is going to say it. _(It’s your money. Not mine. Not ours.)_ But then an expression crosses her face like she’s tasting something mildly unpleasant; rolling it around in her mouth and coming to terms with it. Finally, her fingers tighten around the file folder still clasped in her hands and her expression flattens out into a neutral mask.

She nods a little.

Unable to fully believe it, he asks tentatively. “So…you think we should?”

“Maybe.” Veronica turns back to the computer. “Let me…think about how to handle it with Dad, okay?”

Unsure whether to chalk this unprecedented attitude up to the progression of their relationship or to her recent brain injury, Logan keeps an extra careful eye on her for the next two days, but he has to admit, she really does seem back to normal.

So, with a week to go until deployment, when they return from a morning run on the beach and his phone chimes with an email from work, he doesn’t immediately ignore it.

One ear on the sound of rushing water from Veronica’s shower, he wearily opens the email to see what fresh Navy hell awaits him.

One of the jets that had been cleared as a backup for their deployment is behind on its required flight hours. In the rush to deployment, the change of command, the flurries of paperwork, that fact had somehow fallen through the cracks and now it is “urgent” that someone take it up for one last evolution.

Logan takes a look at the list of names on the email, calculates vacations and children and wives and parents and shoots off a quick _I’ve got it_ to “Reply All.”

Setting his phone on the counter, he heads back to the shower to give Veronica a heads up and, if things go his way, get a proper hero’s send off.

 

___________

 

Base feels odd, without the rest of the squad in the Ready Room. The whole flight, actually, is a much more solitary experience than he’s accustomed to. He’s got an unfamiliar ground crew, another squad’s commander doing the pre-flight brief, and a solo flight in the two-seater jet. Without a WSO in the back seat behind him, the Hornet feels unfamiliarly light, shooting up into the sky in a roaring glide. The pressure and engine noise enclosing him in a bubble.

Logan levels the jet off, flicking his eyes down to check the distance calculations scribbled on the knee-board strapped to his thigh. He quickly leaves San Diego behind, heading out to the designated spot in the desert where Navy jets run maneuvers, keeping his eyes on the list of waypoints displayed on the see-through HUD display.

He’d worked so hard to get this back in his life after his accident. So hard to be able to once again stretch his being out into the atmosphere and feel the raw, god-like power as tons of metal responds nimbly to his every move.

In many ways, it still feels as heart-poundingly perfect as it did the first time he’d strapped on wings.

Logan keys the radio switch and connects with the flight control tower somewhere below, automatically identifying himself and reporting his route and his fuel status while deeper thoughts churn below the surface.

Life was supposed to be clear cut, once he became a pilot—not _easy_ , never that—but proceeding forward on a clear path, with a logical future stretching out in front of him. His career gives meaning to his life. Purpose. For a long time it had seemed like the only thing that did. But…he hates parts of it too? Hates the bureaucracy and the big bloated machine of the Navy; the forced obeisance to assholes; the long stretches away from home; the endless pull of go and stay.

Is he allowed to leave something he loves—something that made his life worth living—if he wants to? Or is that just the entitled teenage shithead in him, rearing its ugly head?  

He reaches the designated station and starts to put the jet through maneuvers. Rolling the Hornet onto its side, he banks into a ninety degree turn, automatically clenching his muscles hard against the resulting 4G of pressure. He levels out, breathing in long controlled puffs, and then slides the jet into a series of low-g defensive break turns. A hyber, power through the ditch, a few pirouettes. The plane responds nimbly to each of the maneuvers and the systems all check out.

Logan exhales in a steady stream, scanning the sky around him. The cockpit of an F/A-18 sits well above the level of the rest of the plane, encasing the pilot in an almost completely clear bubble down to waist height. Everything below him, around him, and above him is visible. It’s about as close as he’ll ever come to seeing the whole thing—the big picture.

He wheels the jet around, setting up for some low altitude flying between mountain peaks. _Do I want to leave the Navy?_

The blue sky doesn’t answer.

 

\-----------------

 

After a long shower in the changing rooms, Logan comes out of the hangar and heads toward the lot where the aviators park; his mind on dinner and whether Veronica will want him to pick something up, or whether she’s left the hospital already.

“Inattentive much.”

He looks up in surprise at Veronica’s voice. She’s ten feet away, leaning insouciantly against the side of his BMW convertible, wearing his favorite tight black cigarette pants, heels, a flowy top in a deep berry shade, and the scarf he got her their first Christmas together; an oddly dressy outfit, considering they have no plans.  When he’d left for base, she’d been leaving the house for a run in ratty terrycloth shorts and one of his oversized t-shirts.

In the last few days, Veronica has lost some of the weariness that has seemed to hang about her since the accident. Her bruises are fading, and barely visible beneath her make-up, and she is sort of vibrating with a suppressed, keyed-up energy. The expression on her face is odd, expectant and…nervous? It doesn’t _look_ like he’s in trouble, and yet…

“Veronica? What are you doing here? Was I supposed to..?”

“Nope.” She shakes her head firmly. “Surprise.”

“How did you even get on Base? I didn’t call in a pass.”

She lifts her eyebrows playfully. “I have my ways.”

Logan reaches out and snags her by the waist, pulling her in for a kiss. “Yeah, but the US military isn’t usually susceptible to them. And where is your car? Veronica, is everything okay?”

She leans against him for a second, resting her weight on him in a way she rarely does except when she’s overwhelmed. “It’s fine. This is just…a surprise. You’re done, right? We can go?”

“We can go. Are you _sure_ you’re okay?”

“Good! I’m driving.” She straightens up, chirps the unlock button on her key fob and hops into the driver seat before he can protest. 

 He walks around the car, sliding into the passenger seat. “Are we going to a late lunch?”

“Maybe eventually, if you want to. Hungry?”

“Not especially. Are you?”

“No.”

In deference to the strange mood in the car, Logan falls quiet. Veronica turns the satellite radio on with the punch of a button on the steering wheel and something soothing and soft fills the car.

When he reaches over and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, she smiles at him. She looks… _god_ , she looks amazing and he’s suddenly filled with the conviction that everything _is_ okay; that whatever this weird fit of Veronica’s is, it’s not bad. Along with that thought comes relaxation and, immediately following, exhaustion.

During the last two weeks before deployment, they are usually on light duty so that the sailors and aviators can rest and spend time with their families, but with the accident, Logan feels like he’s been running at top speed for months. This morning he’d woken up at 3:45, plagued by some vague dream he can’t remember and unable to fall back asleep.

The quiet music, the weak January sun on the side of his face, Veronica’s reassuring presence a few feet away, and her smooth driving combine to lull him to sleep.

He breathes in deeply through his nose and Veronica rubs the back of his neck lightly.

He’s out like a light.

_______________

 

“Logan,” a hand on his cheek, “Logan, wake up, we’re here.”

He blinks open his eyes, oddly refreshed from his impromptu nap, and not at all groggy. Veronica is leaning over him, and if he thought she was nervous earlier, that is nothing compared to the agitation she’s exhibiting now. To the outside observer she might seem calm, but all of her shields are up and she’s aggressively projecting ease with all of her might, a sure sign that she is off-balance.

“Sorry, I know you’re tired, I would have let you keep sleeping, but we’ll miss our appointment.”

He looks away from her. They are parked on a busy street in downtown San Diego. Across the street in his immediate line of sight is a Jack In The Box and behind him…Logan swivels his head to take it in. A Spanish style courtyard, lush with green trees, surrounds a tan sandstone administrative building built in the mission revival style, with a soaring central tower and large ornate arched front doors.

"We’re at the San Diego County Courthouse."

She shrugs. "Yeah, I didn't want to do this at Balboa County's."

Logan is still deeply perplexed, his mind working to make some sense of the whole scenario. "Do wha—" he suddenly realizes what, exactly, a couple might do at the courthouse and his stomach seems to both sink and soar in a giddy swoop. "Veronica..."

"I know, I know. This is so unromantic.” She’s smiling determinedly, manically. “You wanted the big story to regale your girlfriends with afterwards. What _will_ Vic and Tank say?"

All he can say is her name, again. "Veronica." _Is this really…_

Her fixed grin wobbles a bit. "Marry me?"

 

________________

 

Logan freezes—actually, literally goes stock still—for a second after she asks and his eyes are frustratingly unreadable. Veronica’s heart seems to lodge somewhere in her throat, waiting for his response.

Then, in a blink, he’s animated again and shoving a hand through his hair. "Veronica, I..."

She’s busy pushing down the panic that’s choking her, down under a firm layer of determination. She hasn’t let herself think about what she’ll do if he says no. Where that would leave them. Logan scans her face, and whatever he finds there seems to make him feel like he needs to reassure her.

"Of course I want to marry you, Veronica. You are the _only_ one who I could ever even think about it with. But…”

"But." 

He reaches out a hand as though to caress her temple, but pulls back. “Veronica, you’re concussed. That’s literally a brain injury. I’m not marrying you while you’re not—“

Veronica shakes her head sharply, making her hair fly. “I’m _not_ concussed. The headaches stopped two days ago. I have no blurred vision, ringing in the ears, nothing else the doctor said to watch for. Next objection.”

“Okay, but they said symptoms could still be present for up to two weeks and I—"

“—I’m _fine_ , Logan, I know—“

“—don’t want to risk—“

“—what my body is telling me and I’m fine.”

“—you again, and this is really big—“

"Hey!” Veronica slices through their overlapping arguments, and then takes a deep breath in. “Jackass, I love you." She says it caressingly and he responds in kind, relaxation spreading through him as though he had been stroked. 

He slumps down a little in the car seat. "And if that's not proof of brain damage I don't know what is."

Veronica reaches out and cups his chin, meeting his eyes with as much steadiness as she can muster. There aren’t so much butterflies in her stomach as gigantic fucking bats. "I'm not concussed anymore."

He rubs his hand hard across the back of his neck, then concedes. "No, you’re probably not."

"I want to get married. To you."

"I…do too. You have to know that, Veronica. I love you so much."

“Okay then.” She releases him and makes to open her car door, but is stopped by Logan’s restraining hand on her upper arm.

"Wait!” He waves a hand around at the street. "Here? Now? Are you…” His voice drops gently. “You know, your dad is going to be all right. We can wait for him to be here. And what about Mac or Wallace? It doesn't have to be big, or anything, but I'd always thought...you know, on the beach," he shrugs helplessly, "at sunset or something..." He trails off into a mumble. 

Veronica's eyes widen as she releases the door handle and slumps back into the car, "You've got this _planned_."

Logan shakes his head.

"No. You do. You have a romantic hypothetical wedding planned for us and I'm ruining it." She lets out a laugh that sounds hysterical, even to her, but she can’t seem to rein it in. "My big strong Navy hero."

"Look, it's just...I just want it to be...us."

Her nervous laughter chokes off mid-stream. "Me too." Veronica bites her lip and looks down at her hands, clasped in her lap, dragging her explanation from somewhere deep inside of her. Somewhere that she’s never really shared with him before. Somewhere raw. "I need it to be now, Logan. I _need_ this before you go. After—After what happened with Dad, I can't handle the uncertainty. I need to know that if...if something happens I'm the one who gets that phone call. I just…need it."

The side of his mouth quirks up. “So, this marriage is like your version of dog tags. Staking a claim; if lost, please return to?”

“Ye-no. No. Look, if you really hate the idea, we can just get a divorce after you get back.”

Logan lets out a noise of negation that comes perilously close to being a growl. “No divorce.”

“Or not,” she agrees.

He shakes his head, opens his mouth and then closes it. He doesn’t say anything.

She doesn’t say anything.

The silence in the car grows and swells until it feels like a palpable thing; she can actually feel Logan’s brain working next to her. Her face feels hot and quivery, and she doesn’t even want to contemplate what she might do if he says no after all of this.

“Okay Veronica,” he finally says, a tone of challenge in his voice. “You know that if we get married, we’re using _our_ money to pay off those student loans.”

She squirms internally, but it is a small, expected squirm. “Yeah. I mean…we’ll talk about it. But, yeah.”

He tilts his head, eyes narrowing a little as he assesses her. He probably thinks he looks serious and adult, but it’s an expression that is so reminiscent of high school era Logan that she can’t help feel comforted. Regardless of what he thinks, she really _has_ thought this through. Bring on the objections.

He fingers play with the seatbelt buckle. “What about…the Navy? Moving. My next station could be Florida, or Japan. I know some of the guys leave their wives—” He stops, clears his throat. As their eyes meet, a sizzle of something undefinable shoots up Veronica’s spine. When he continues, his voice is feathery soft. “— leave their wives behind, but I’m not doing that, Veronica. You’d have to leave your dad, Mars Investigations…”

He searches her face and this is a hard one, so Veronica does some searching too, looking inside of herself for the fear, the uncertainty, that must surely be lurking somewhere. But it’s not. Instead, underneath the bats and the quivering, she’s filled with a bright steady flame. It makes her feel strong; powerful.

“I’m sure.”

“Veronica.” Logan leans in even closer, lips almost on hers, and rests his forehead against hers. She’s almost got him. “You’re brushing an awful lot of big issues to the side, here. Things that I _know_ matter to you. I don’t want to rush into anything you’ll regret, or make you compromise because of this deployment. Because you’re afraid.” He brings his hands up to bracket her face. “It would…it would _kill_ me if we did this and you regretted it later.”

Veronica closes her eyes momentarily against the ache his words bring. She hasn’t explained _anything_ right. "Logan, that’s not…fuck.” She growls in frustration. “I’m sick of having to explain to people that we are family."

With that, he moves forward a bare breath, and his lips are against hers—not just a kiss but a promise, a seal. She swallows hard and leans back a little to search his eyes. He tenderly brushes a strand of hair out of her face and kisses her forehead. In that moment she knows that she’s won. This is happening.

They’re getting married.

Logan ducks his head down again and takes her mouth in another kiss, this time fierce and consuming. "Okay, then. Let’s do this."

As they kiss, Veronica waves her hand next to her face, pageant contestant style, and utters triumphantly into his mouth. "He said yes! He said yes!"

The kiss breaks into laughter.

 

______________

 

The laughter, unfortunately, only carries them across the street. The outside of the courthouse is beautiful—soaring white stucco towers and a red barrel tile roof—but inside it looks like every other government office waiting room ever. Taupe paint, greige industrial strength carpet, a long side counter with stacks of labeled forms, and ugly molded plastic chairs in clumps along the walls. The giddy mood from outside dampens as they wait in line to check in.

Veronica Mars, queen of planning ahead had, of course, made an appointment. She’d followed all of the websites directions exactly and to the letter, hauling a dark orange folder filled with paperwork out of her bag once they’re inside the building.

Of course, bureaucracy being what it is, they still have to wait behind several other couples for the officiant to be free. Directly ahead of them in line are two men in neat suits—tightly joined at the hand and bantering excitedly with a crowd of six or so friends. The other wedding party in the room seems to swirl around a very young girl in a short, but definitely bridal, white dress and veil, and fabulous blue heels. An older woman hovers over her, fussing with the veil in a motherly way while a photographer clicks shots and the groom, in the full dress uniform of the marines, gamely tries to talk about the Chargers with his apparently unhappy father-in-law to be.

As first the jailbait couple, and then giddy men go into the ceremony room, Logan and Veronica sit in uncomfortably firm chairs, quietly side by side. Veronica gives up trying to come up with anything to say around the weird lump in her throat and instead straightens her scarf, untying the knot and retying it to lie a little flatter. Next to her, Logan looks down at himself and then at her outfit. Back at himself. He’s wearing nice jeans and a button down shirt – and looks pretty much as amazing as he always does – but she still knows what’s coming.

“Should I change?” He leans over and whispers, “I’ve got my service khakis in the trunk.”

“No.”                                                                                 

“Are you sure?”

“You look fine. Wonderful. Great.”

“Should we…take a selfie?”

She snorts. “No.”

He leans in teasingly, nudging her neck with his nose, his voice a low murmur. “Commemorative picture? Heart shaped frame?”

“Shut it.” The smile lessens the tightness in her throat.  

He drops a light kiss on the tip of her ear. “This is weird, right?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“But you’re okay that?”

Veronica drops her eyes to the trailing ends of her scarf again, then tilts her head to rest against his shoulder. Closing her eyes, she whispers, “Are you?”

“I am.”

“Me too.” Her cheek rubs against the crisp fabric of his shirt as she sits up.

It takes forty-five minutes for them to progress from presenting their IDs and signing the application in front of the clerk—who eyes Veronica’s fading bruises, but doesn’t say anything—to being led into the back room by a cheerful man in cheap looking black robes.

The ceremony itself is short and, initially, surreal. Veronica tries to ground herself in the fact that she is _getting married_ , but her mind keeps zoom-focusing on small details. The worn patch in the carpet runner; the faint buzz of the pedestal fan at the back of the room; the feeling of Logan’s hands between hers; the way the slightly loose heel of her left boot wobbles underneath her while she stands. She can’t seem to quiet her mind while the officiant reads a few short lines about loving, trusting, and respecting each other. Logan squeezes her fingers when the man mentions loyalty. Yeah, they’ve got that one down.

The man’s voice dips slightly and she schools her mind to focus on his words. “The marriage contract is most solemn and it is not to be approached lightly, but rather thoughtfully, seriously, and with a deep realization of its obligations and responsibilities,” the officiant says, with a smile.

_Yes. Yes, I know what I’m getting into. I’ll hold onto this with both hands._

At his motion, they turn and face each other for the vows. Veronica tilts her head up to look directly into Logan’s eyes and finally the world slides away.

Logan is speaking his vows and nothing else exists, not the small office and the smell of paint, not the pleasant man in a suit who is their witness, not the Navy, or her father’s injuries, or their upcoming separation. Nothing. Just the sound of his voice and his big hands trembling slightly in hers.

Then Logan is done and it’s her turn. As she begins to repeat the age old words, she reaches up to run the pad of her thumb along the edge of Logan’s eye, where moisture is gathering. His low, watery chuckle weaves underneath her words as she promises to have and to hold, to love and to cherish. He brings his hand up to trap hers against his cheek and he’s smiling at her with so much love.

Her lip trembles a little and she exhales shakily, waiting for her cue.

“I do,” Veronica says, and something deep inside, tightly clenched, releases.

 

______________

Five days left.

 

_Married. You’re married. You are a married man who is married to Veronica Mars._

He repeats it to himself over and over; as he fills out the Navy paperwork; as he packs and re-packs his sea bag; as he holds Veronica tightly in the hospital hallway while they wait for news of Keith’s latest surgery.

A blissful newlywed period, it is not. Veronica is working furiously, determined to close out all of her dad’s cases as well as keep up with her own. There’s a nagging knot of fear deep inside of Logan whenever he pictures the set of her jaw as she’d vowed to find out who was behind the car crash. Behind everything, in the back of his mind, is a giant ticking clock counting down the days, hours, minutes, until he deploys.

But he’s _married_. Married.

_Logan Echolls, this is your life._

It’s not that he’d never thought about marrying Veronica, prior to waking up on the street outside of the courthouse: he had. Repeatedly. Once they’d made it past their first year together, he’d started picturing it, swirling the idea around in his mind. What kind of married couple would they be? Would they be able to avoid all of the pitfalls that tripped up…every other married couple he knew growing up?  

And then once Veronica had moved back to San Diego, once they’d gotten house together…Yeah, he’d thought about it. But it had never seemed like the right time. He’d had his doubts about marriage as an institution, anyway. Why rock the boat when they were happy and committed? _And what if he’d asked, and she said ‘No’?_

But Veronica had smashed right through all of that in one fell swoop. He shouldn’t have been surprised, really. If anyone could yank his life onto a completely different track simply by existing it would be his...wife.  

Landing a jet on an aircraft carrier is a difficult feat. The main tool that keeps pilots from crashing into the deck in a fiery ball of death and metal is a fixed amber light that they hone in on. All it is is a refracting lens, but it glows firm and true if they’re on the ideal guide slope and path; in the absence of any other signals from the outside world, it can guide them safely home.  Just one small fixed point of light at the center of the whole complex system. One true North. 

He’s _married_.

 

______________

Four days left.

 

With a momentary flare of sickly orange light, the streetlight overhead pops and goes out. Grumbling, Veronica rests the lens of her camera lightly against the car windowsill and checks the view through the viewfinder. Just as she thought, losing the light killed whatever chance she might have of getting a clear shot. She sighs. “Seriously? Since when do streetlights go out?”

“We need another Harry Potter marathon, don’t we?”

Logan smirks at her from the passenger seat of her Mazda. If this was Junior year, he’d have his feet on the dash and be chewing on the straw of a pixie stick. As it is, he’s calm in the bucket seat of her car, feet planted firmly on the floor mats. As much as he bitches about the mid-sized, reasonably priced sedan, he looks at home in the contained space.

She turns the key, firing up the engine, and reaches over to the gearshift.

“I’m going to have to circle the block again, see if I can get a decent angle from behind the 7-11. You just sit there and try not to be such a know-it-all, Hermione.”

He opens his mouth to retort, but then a considering look crosses his face, and he kind of nods, like he’ll take it.

With a last look back at the Beachcomber Motel—currently housing one Todd Johnson and, if Veronica is correct, his latest amour—she pulls smoothly out into the dark street, angling the car for a quick swing around the block.

As she cranks the wheel for the hairpin turn, a muscle in her shoulder twinges sharply, making her wince. She’d fallen asleep upright in a chair in her dad’s hospital room that afternoon and her body is reminding her of the awkward position. As she completes the turn one handed, she can see Logan scanning her out of the corner of her eye. She wedges the car in behind the 7-11 and pulls to a smooth stop. As she does, she turns to face Logan, who still seems concerned, and smiles a wide smile of silent challenge.

_What? You got a comment?_

Logan casts his eyes up to the roof of the car and starts lightly whistling ‘Tiptoe Through the Tulips.’

She purses her lips and snorts. “You know, when I said you could come along…oh _wait_. I didn’t say you could come along. He who hitches a rides without permission needs to quit his bitching.”

“Moi? Bitching? I haven’t said a word.”

“Your silence is very eloquent.”

Logan bats his lashes and leans down to look her in the face. He widens his eyes into an exaggerated comic beg, but she can’t help be captured by their depth, the laughter lurking deep behind his ridiculously puppy dog stare. Then the stare changes, shifts in intensity and becomes sexual in an instant. She can feel her nipples knot under her shirt at the heat and desire in his eyes.

Just as she’s preparing herself for the kiss that seems sure to follow, he darts the tip of his tongue out and licks his lips with an exaggerated lasciviousness that snaps the moment.

“ _Stop_ it, oh my god, I’m _working_.” She laughs, caught somewhere between genuine amusement and genuine annoyance. “I don’t come sit in your cockpit during pre-flight and flip all of your switches and…and…twiddle your buttons.”

“Excu— _twiddle my buttons_ —did you just…?” Logan sputters, choking a little. “I assure you that any and all _button twiddling_ that happens while I’m deployed will be done in the privacy of my mind…or my bunk, in an extreme pinch.”

“Get out of my car.” She shoves at his shoulder and he clutches the grab handle over the door dramatically.

“No.”

“Out!”

“You can’t make me. Never shall I leave your side!” It’s a life or death avowal, spoken in passionate tones.

_You don’t know that._

"I love you." Veronica blurts out, taking them both by surprise. She hates saying it like that. Like some pathetic offering to a God she's not entirely sure she believes in to keep him safe. 

Logan looks down at the floor mats and then quickly back up at her. He smiles softly and releases the grab handle. "Yeah? Good.”

Outside, Todd Johnson’s motel room door finally opens and the man himself makes an appearance. Veronica hastily whips her camera into position, snapping of shot of him in half-profile, speaking to someone who remains inside the room. Someone who, unfortunately, remains unseen.

She lets out a frustrated noise as she shifts the lens, following his path to the car. Logan lays a light hand on her back, buttressing her sore shoulder against the heft of the camera.

None of the shots are the money shot she’d hoped for. Todd looks clearly rumpled, and his presence at the Beachcomber at this time of night doesn’t exactly scream innocence, but Mrs. Todd wants shots of him with the other woman to close out her divorce case.

Veronica pinches the bridge of her nose between two fingers. At this point, it’s either continue waiting in hopes that whoever else is in the room will emerge, or call it a night and try to pick him up again tomorrow.

Logan’s hand shifts from her shoulder to the back of her neck. He gives her nape a light squeeze, before trailing the hand down her back and letting it fall away.

Lowering the camera in frustration, she meets Logan sympathetic smile with a grimace. In response, he raises his eyebrows and claps his hands together. “So, car games? I spy with my little eye…”

She smiles, reluctantly. In the rearview mirror, she can see Todd Johnson, hunched into his jacket as he walks across the parking lot. It’s cold out there, the wind bitter this close to the ocean, but inside their car it’s warm.

“Not ‘I Spy,’ you always cheat. Reach in my bag in the backseat, there’s a deck of cards. You can look on in delight while I kick your ass at War.”

______________

 

Three days left.

 

“Logan, I can’t get to my car. Can you pull the convertible out?”

“Where are you going? Just take it.”

“No, I’m going to the hospital and I’ll be there a while. You said you needed to drop off some paperwork at the lawyer’s office.”

“Wait, won’t you be back before then?”

“Just … can you please move the convertible?”

“Fine, fine. Whatever you say, M—my dear.”

Logan is having a hard time suppressing the deep seated and perverse desire to address his wife—a smile spreads across his face at the thought—as Mrs. Echolls, and given the laser glare she’d given him before leaving the house, Veronica knows it.

She'd loathe it, of course. She had kept her name, and he really had no desire for her to do otherwise. Still, he can’t quite get past the absolutely delicious thought of how mad she would get if he did. Veronica all riled up—a tingle of lust mixed with healthy fear runs thorough him at the thought. She would be _so mad_. The kind that could either lead to stupendous angry sex or to…well, _no_ sex.

_Are you really willing to risk no sex on the eve of a six month deployment?_

Regretfully, he tries to let the thought go. But...no. He just can't give up this gold star level jackass material. It's not in him. Maybe he'll save "Mrs. Echolls" for emails from the boat. Right. Thousands of nautical miles should prove adequate protection from her wrath.

Should. 

 

______________

 

Two days left.

 

Morning has come hard and grudging for Veronica, these last few days. Each time she wakes up it pushes her closer to the inevitable parting. Each day brings with it a new pile of work that she simultaneously wants to bury herself in, and ignore. So she does both in turns, and feels satisfied with neither.

_What’s on tap today, Veronica?_

Logan shifts underneath her, waking up, so she rolls off of him, rubs her eyes, and leans back against the pillows. “What do you want to do today?”

His voice is still rough with sleep. “We could always unpack those last three boxes still sitting in the living room.”

She stifles a yawn behind her forearm. “Nope. Too late. We’ve missed our window. They are part of our décor now.”

“Millennial cardboard chic, hm?” Logan sketches one hand through the air. “I like it.”

“Yup. They’ll be here to greet you when you return.”

He rumbles a laugh and pulls her in closer, subsiding back into an early morning doze; his fingers comb idly through her hair and trail up and down her bare arm. She’s got dozens of items on her to do list today. Hospital visiting hours start in twenty minutes, but she doesn’t want to leave the bed. This…

This is important, too. Their relationship, their… _marriage._

Two and half years ago in Logan’s hospital bed, she had sailed back into their relationship so blithely—yes, of _course_ they could do a long distance relationship, back together for the first time in seven years, with all of their accumulated issues, and Logan’s new life in the military that she knew less than nothing about, _sure_ it would all work out—and she’d found herself in for far more than she could ever have imagined. There was the deeply awkward loneliness that came from being together but far away. The constant water-torture-esque worry about Logan in danger. The frustration, seething resentment, and loneliness of deployment—which was horrible the first time and which she suspects will consistently evolve new ways to suck each time he goes.

Two years ago, she’d _thought_ she understood those hardships, those problems—had thought she was taking the relationship on with clear eyes and understanding—but she’d had no idea what she was getting herself into.

Was she doing the same thing with their marriage? Will the Veronica of five years from now look back on this moment—this decision—and scoff at her own naïveté?

Probably.

She lets her hand drift up, twining her fingers with Logan’s. He gives her a comfortable squeeze. Veronica shakes her head at her own internal waffling and rolls back on top of him, seeking the kind of mindless early morning distraction that won’t be available to her for much longer. Logan smiles up at her as she settles into place, but he doesn’t make any move to start anything. Instead, he reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Hey, Veronica…”

“Mm?”

“Your dad’s case…how is that…”

She runs her fingers down the taut line of his abs to just above his cock, tickling. Inviting. Logan catches her fingers and brings them up to his lips for a kiss.

“Veronica…I know you don’t want to talk about this, but just humor me, okay?”

She sighs, heavily, but stops trying to distract him.  

“I could talk to Wallace, or Dick or whoever and ask them to look after you, make sure you don't...get hurt, but I don't want to do that," Logan says.

Her responding smile is cynical. "Because you know Wallace will, anyway, and it's not like I'll be keeping Dick in the loop."

"No, because I don't want reassurances from _them_ ; I want to hear it from you. The same as last time I was deployed - nothing overly rash, keep yourself safe. Ask for help if you need it. Be your usual smart self out in the field."

She pokes him in the chest. "You know, last time our promise went two ways. You stay safe, I stay safe. No ejections, no air-born emergencies…"

He waggles his eyebrows. “What a waste of a perfectly good marriage license.”

“Logan.”

“Veronica, I'm still in, if you are.”

Veronica fake spits on her hand and holds it out for a shake.

“Ew,” he says, and oh so gently redirects the offending hand to his cock.

 

______________

One day left.

 

Veronica crawls into the cupboard under the kitchen counter and retrieves the vacuum sealer from where she’d shoved it when they moved into the house. She hauls the machine out and eyes it with loathing before giving it a thorough scrub down and pushing it to the back of the kitchen counter where it crouches like a malevolent toad.

In fact, everything in the kitchen is filthy and needs to be deep cleaned. What do they pay the maid for anyway?

She scrubs and scrubs at the tile of the counter near the stove, the stubborn grout, until the bleach fumes make her eyes sting and she realizes she isn’t accomplishing anything, working the same spot over and over. A permanent baked-in flaw of the tile. Nothing is getting cleaner.

______________

 

No more days.

 

The grey light of dawn seeps in through their bedroom curtains and Veronica strains her eyes, scratchy from not sleeping, against it. Outside, the pre-dawn streets exist momentarily in a profound silence, unbroken for a small space by bird twitters, or the rumble of garbage trucks. Inside, only the slight tick of their ceiling fan and Logan’s light snoring count the minutes down.  

No more days.

Last night, they’d made love, slow and passionate, long into the early hours and she’d tried not to think about the impending separation. Tried to shut her brain off. Finally, a few hours ago, she’d feigned sleep so that Logan would sleep himself. He’s got a long day ahead of him.

Now he breathes heavily under the drape of her body, mouth smashed into her temple, his chest rising and falling in a familiar cadence.  His phone rests on the nightstand next to him and Veronica eyes it like a snake about to strike. The alarm is set to go off in twenty minutes.

She turns her head and presses a firm kiss against his naked pectoral, squeezing her eyes shut against the burn of tears she feels welling up.

_No. Fuck no._

She slides her mouth down Logan’s torso, briefly applying suction to the edges of his nipples, where she knows he likes it, suckling as he starts to rock up lightly and make waking-up murmurs beneath her. Shifting down to the bottom of the bed, she nips a little harder than she really intends to at the tender skin at the juncture his hip and groin. Logan comes fully awake with an, “Ow! Fuck, Veronica,” that is quickly swallowed up by a groan when she takes him into her mouth in sucking, enveloping head.

He swells from his usual morning half-hardness in her mouth as she works him, filling herself with the taste of his skin, the inarticulate noises he makes, the way she can make him curl and writhe. There’s a frantic weight, still, behind her eyes, in her chest, and she’s not easy on him, no soft licks, no kisses, just suction—pressure for pressure.

“Ah! God, Veronica, god!” His hands are in her hair, gentle, so gentle, and she sucks hard, vengefully, until he arcs up into her, fucking into her mouth with small uncontrolled thrusts.

She chokes a bit and she can feel him trying to pull back, but she follows his body, changing the angle, taking him deeper, digging her nails into the insides of his thighs as he spreads them around her head.

Logan comes with a hoarse shout that burns its way into her brain, jerking up into a gorgeous arc of muscle and man as she sucks him through the climax and beyond, until he gasps out a whimper and his hips relax back to the bed.

She leans back, wiping her mouth. The pressure is unabated.

 “God, Veronica…” He’s gasping like a landed fish. “Sorry, that was _amaz_ … I’m going to… just… give me…” He reaches out a hand, snares her shoulder and tugs on her weakly. “Come here.”

She flops inelegantly on top of him and he hauls her chin up so that he can kiss her, sloppily, open-mouthed and wet and musky. Veronica spears her fingers through what is left of his hair, damp with sweat at the roots.

They’re kissing deep and he’s murmuring into her mouth as he eats it out, “love you love you love you love you.” She crawls up his body, stripping her underwear off as she goes, pinning the pillow on either side of his head with her knees. She inches up to his face as he grasps her hips, pulling her to his mouth, but stopping her just short of her goal.

Deliberately, he spreads her wide with his broad thumbs, then presses a small, feather-light kiss to her clit that makes Veronica gasp and thrust forward hungrily. He grins up at her, wicked, still panting himself, and she arcs her back, planting her hands behind her and leaning on them to tilt her sex demandingly toward his mouth.

Their usual rhythms are out the window and he doesn’t start teasingly, nibbling, light, like he usually does. Instead, he plunges right in with tongue and full mouth and fingers, working her deep, caressing her everywhere until she loses all awareness of the world outside of Logan and the space between her legs.

She needs to come needs to come needs to keep him there forever needs to come.

He strokes into her with two long fingers, tongue working her clit in just the right way— _god, oh god_ —adds a third to stretch her, fill her. His mouth works in tandem as she starts to hump his hand with abandon, the noise and the wet and the sensations of his insatiable assault wringing deep grunts from her. Her thighs are trembling, toes clenching the sheets. He presses his thumb backwards, a fluttering gentle touch against her and she keens, high and wild and comes all over his hand, mouth, chin.

Veronica slumps backward, half on Logan’s body, half on the bed, into what would be a supremely awkward position if she were capable of caring about that kind of thing right then.

She’s sweaty and gasping. The bed is a wreck and Logan is kind of shudder-panting under her. He brings his hand up to rest heavily on her thigh. She can feel him, half hard, pressed against the side of her waist. Overhead, the ceiling fan ticks the seconds away.

_More. There’s still time._

Veronica rolls over, climbing on top of him, energy surging through her, holding exhaustion at bay by sheer force of will. “I need…” She tugs lightly at his shoulders. “Can you?”

Logan takes her cue and sits up, rolling them over so that he is on top, covering her, face to face.

She reaches down between them, fumbling to bring his cock, still not fully recovered, into her. He helps her, shifting with a groan and undulating forward, suspended above her on trembling arms.

She wraps her legs around his waist and he shifts his hips, probing into her. “Give it a second, Veronica, shh..” He presses kisses to her forehead, the tip of her nose. “Shh, just…let me feel this. Please.”

She nods, staring up at him. Endless seconds. Endless minutes in the dim cool of their bedroom.

At last, he leans down to her mouth and starts a slow devour; deep drugging kisses like hot molasses, panting into her mouth, then pulling back, making her fight for the connection. She drifts her hands up and down his back, tracing patterns in the sheen of sweat covering him, and rolls her hips, savoring the feel of him—deep and getting deeper. More inside of her than anyone has ever been. Than she ever wants anyone else to be.

When they finally start to thrust together, it feels more like an extension of the kiss than a separate motion, bodies in sync. Every movement sends a white hot arc from her breasts down to where they are joined.

Logan moans into her mouth and she swallows it. She can feel a low level orgasm building and cresting through her as they thrust, just a small peak and she’s climbing again almost before her inner muscles stop clenching.

A bead of sweat rolls down the bridge of his nose, drips onto her chin, she swipes at it with her tongue, hungry to taste him. The pace picks up. He ducks his head down to mouth at her breasts and then kisses his way back up her sternum, ravenously seizing her mouth like he can’t bear to leave it for long.

She hasn’t been letting the tenderness in because it’ll wreck her, wreck her she knows it, but he’s crooning to her, crooning her name over and over and it just all feels like too much suddenly, too much, she’s pulling away from him, trying to get away, get out from under him, away from everything, but he reels her back with every thrust. Keeps her with him.

“Stay. Stay with me, Veronica. Stay.”

She lets out a sob and clutches him tight. Their tempo increases to the point where she stops hearing the slap of their bodies, and the gasp of their breath. They are a being of feeling and sensation, lost to the world. She wraps her legs up higher, digging her heels in hard and they rock and struggle together. Logan is above her and around her and he’s so beautiful and she can see on his face that he's flying. Her mind makes a brief, incoherent vow that whatever he decides with the Navy she'll make sure that he can fly. Logan should always be able to fly. Veronica is trying so hard to try to get him there, get them both there and the pressure in her builds unbearably, leaving her gasping, open-mouthed, body pleading for something just out of reach, something—

The world explodes around her, white light cascading into a shrill ringing in her ears, pounding in harsh time to the blood thrumming through her.

She breathes deep. One breath. Two. The spots recede from her vision. Three. Logan is collapsed on top of her. Four. The shrilling noise isn’t in her head.

It’s the alarm.

Logan slaps the screen of his phone and settles bonelessly back on top of her, their breathing sounds harsh and obscene in the sudden quiet of their room. It’s cold. Veronica is cold.

Logan clears his throat. “I have to shower.”

Cooling sweat has suctioned them together and his skin pulling away from hers is painful. She doesn’t move when the bed rocks under her and he walks, shakily, to the bathroom.

Laying there, dry eyed and listless, the pressure wrung out of her at last, Veronica feels nothing but empty and tired as she listens to the shower. At one point, she crawls to the side of the bed and snags Logan’s shirt, discarded the night before, to pull on.

She drifts into a waking sleep, the sound of the shower a steady and inexorable shushing. Her eyes are open, but time somehow slides away, so that before she knows it Logan is standing over her, fully dressed in his tropical whites, smiling.

She sits up. Show time.

“It’s too early,” she whines, in a teasing tone that, to her ears, sounds remarkably convincing.

“Yeah, Uncle Sam waits for no man.”

“You _sure_ you don’t want a ride to the base?”

“Yeah.”

Veronica knee-walks her way down the bed, and reaches up to smooth her hands against his chest.

“Be careful out there.”

He pins her hands between his, smiles tenderly at her. “You too.”

Outside, two sharp beeps of a car horn announce the arrival of Tank, Logan’s ride.

She works free of his grasp and twines her arms around his neck. “I always am. I’ll be here when you get back.”

Logan sets his hands on her waist, and looks her earnestly in the eye. “I know that you will. I know…Veronica, I don’t…I still don’t always trust me to be enough—“

Veronica opens her mouth, ready to interrupt, but he holds up a hand, forestalling her.

“No. Let me explain this, please.”

She closes her mouth.

“It’s still hard to trust myself sometimes, but I’ve figured out that you and I together, we’re—I can trust _us_. I trust that together we’re strong enough to figure anything out.” His eyes are boring into her, warm and sincere. “I’m not going to be afraid anymore.” His mouth quirks at the corners, turning his sincere expression slightly roguish. “I know who I married.”

She swallows hard. Forces the next words out in a whisper. “Come back to me.”

“Always.”

He shoulders his bag and walks away.

 

______________

 

Veronica taps the counter lightly to get the clerk’s attention. “Is Mrs. Quan here?”

The bored teenager doesn’t even turn his head when he hollers, “Grandma? There’s someone who wants to talk to you.”

A lightning fast stream of a language Veronica doesn’t know issues from what is presumably the back room behind him.

“She’ll be out in a minute.”

He raises his eyebrow, sending his ring piercing jingling, clearly done with her, so Veronica steps to the side. The small Village Grocery is pristine inside, no sign of the persistent vandalism that had brought Mrs. Quan to Mars Investigations so many months ago and set Veronica off on a trail that seemed to lead right to the doorstep of the Balboa County Sheriff’s Department.

There are signs of economic hardship, though if she looks carefully. The display cases are only half full, product pushed meticulously up to the front to give the illusion of a full supply and the magazine rack is out of date. Veronica skims her fingers across the top of a _People_ magazine from December. It’s the Year In Review edition and there’s a picture of Carrie Bishop—Bonnie Deville—on the top right corner. Veronica snags the magazine out of the rack and flips to a full page spread of Carrie’s funeral, under the banner “Gone Too Soon.”

_Let’s play…spot the high school classmate!_

In the center of the picture is a crumple-faced Luke Haldeman (son of a Congressman!), standing next to Gia, who looks oddly stoic. There is Darcy Moore, arm in arm with— _yuck_ —Sean Freidrich. A starlet. Another starlet. Cut off at the edge of the picture is half a head of blond hair that probably belongs to Dick. And, in the back, hovering behind Gia’s shoulder, is a pale weaselly-looking guy with dark hair who looks vaguely familiar— _maybe from junior year Chem?_ She brings the page a little closer to her face, trying to place him.

“Veronica Mars.” Veronica guiltily jerks the magazine down to see Mrs. Quan peering at her. “How is your father?”

 

______________

 

Mars Investigations is quiet without her dad. Mac is still working part time on an as-needed basis, but she’s not in the office today, and Veronica doesn’t have a client meeting scheduled for another hour.

Now, she settles behind her own desk with the notes Mrs. Quan was able to give her on the vandalisms and surveys her kingdom.

One year ago she was in New York, helping Hazel with her case and wondering _how many more of these moments of decision are there?_

Veronica takes in the stacks of file folders at the edge of her desk, the blinking light on the old-fashioned answering machine - fourteen new messages.

One year ago, she was a moron. They’re _all_ moments of decision. Every single one of them. Every day, every thought, every action is an opportunity to stay or to go, to push forward on her current path or to forge a new one. That’s what her whole life will be—moments of decision.

Everything she’s done since running across the country to Logan after his accident: staying with him while he healed; taking those pictures of her law firm partner last summer; taking Hazel’s case; the clinic; moving to California and taking the bar; getting married at the courthouse two weeks ago; all of it has led to this moment.

And in _this_ moment, her decision is…to stay here. She looks down at the ring finger of her left hand, barren but somehow oddly still symbolic, and smiles. _My decision is to stay here and fight._

A sound in the anteroom of Mars Investigations makes Veronica pull her feet down off the desk and sit up. She can hear heels tap across the room and then pause. “In here!” she calls, and suddenly there is Gia Goodman, of all people, filling her doorway, looking long and lean and somewhat mournful.

Gia looks down, tapping her fingers against her thigh for a long minute and then, with a sudden jerk of decision, her head comes up. She takes a sharp breath in and Veronica can almost see her words hang in the air before her lips form them.

“I need your help, Veronica.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, do me a favor and [click here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bzg7anKEk4FyRnFIb0xhZWdHUGc/view?usp=sharing). I really feel like it helps complete the end of this story. 
> 
> ...
> 
> Back? Okay! This has been a long, strange trip, and one that I never, ever could have completed if you, the people in the comments, weren't so kind, encouraging, enthusiastic and, most of all, patient. When I started this story I never imagined that it would take over a year to complete. Thank you, thank you, thank you for every encouraging comment, kudos, message, refresh, or kind thought you gave this fic. A small piece of of fun timeline trivia: the only official date we have for the events of the movie comes from Mr. Kiss And Tell. During Weevil's trial, Cliff mentions that his shooting, and therefor the Reunion, takes place on January 25th - the day this chapter is posting! _(Yeah, yeah, the year thing, I know - LET ME HAVE THIS!)_
> 
> I owe a lot of thanks to the ffsg crew: for dressing Veronica for her wedding, helping me pace my smut, general enthusiasm and cheerleading, and for being Lilly Kane levels of fabulous. 
> 
> The biggest debt, though, is owed to the fabulous **marshmallowtasha**. Through a year and a half and well over 100,000 words, she has been this story's biggest champion, a critical eye, and a dear friend. This story would not be what it is without her, and I can not say thank you enough. 
> 
> I really appreciate you all sticking with the story for so long. Onward and upward! Next up for me is an entry in the February [Veronica/Logan Smut-A-Thon](http://bryrosea.tumblr.com/post/137252209412/announcing-february-veronicalogan-smut-a-thon). Check it out; anyone is welcome to contribute!
> 
> P.S. This story was always about bringing our couple back to the movie timeline, and the ending scene of the fic has been written for over a year. No plans for a sequel, currently, but never say never!
> 
> P.P.S If you thought you saw a shout out to Hamilton in the farewell scene, you did! I couldn't help myself.


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